Reunion
by Miss Padfoot
Summary: Remus Lupin reflects on the deaths of his friends and his life afterwards.
1. Default Chapter Title

Reunion 

Author's Note: When I originally started this fanfic, a little while after I finished reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I intended for it to be merely a retelling of the scene in the Shrieking Shack, from Lupin's point of view. However, these stories have a way of taking on a life of their own, sometimes . . . I ended up writing a lot more than I had intended to, going all the way back to the night James and Lily died. But it was fun, and I hope you like it! 

Disclaimer: These characters all belong to J.K. Rowling. I am not making any money off of this story, so please don't sue me! 

I knew it was too good to be true. 

I felt it when I first came here, could feel it nagging at the back of my mind throughout the whole year. 

Then why do I feel so disappointed? Why can't I shake this emptiness that lingers in my heart, as the castle slips out of slight past my carriage window? Did I actually allow myself to believe that it would work out, that this would last? 

No. Nearly thirty years after that fateful night, when I was only a small child . . . I've learned not to expect happy endings. Other people sail off into the sunset, or settle down and live happily ever after. Other people find a place, at last, after all their trials . . . a place where they belong. I was foolish enough--not to believe, never entirely--but to hope, at least, that maybe I would find such a place here. 

But then, as Severus (and many others as well) would remind me, I am not like other people. I am not even a person, truly, nor have I been for nearly thirty years. . . . For a year I thought that I had found it at last . . . a steady job, a life that meant something, striving to inspire and teach a new generation of young witches and wizards. For the first time since that terrible night twelve years ago, I was accepted, back at Hogwarts, the only place I have ever called home. I was respected, even liked by my students, after twelve years of wandering. 

Ever since the deaths of James and Lily, I had roamed the country, searching for work, living off of what little money I could make. I moved from job to job, never staying too long in any one position, and always enduring the same looks of thinly disguised fear and loathing. I was lucky, during those years, to even be tolerated; no one wanted to be friendly or get to know me. As long as I was paid, I was grateful. I was not like any of the witches and wizards I worked with, in any of the many jobs I held, sometimes for a few days, or weeks, or at most a few months. I was . . . I am . . . something less than human, and I have never been allowed to forget it. 

I should have known better. For a while I thought--I hoped desperately--that here in the halls of my old school I might reach the end of my search. But now the castle has disappeared, and the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest slide past my window on the way to the station, where the train waits to take me away. 

Good-bye, Hogwarts. 

Good-bye, Albus Dumbledore. You tried, once again, to give me a chance when no one else would, when no one else cared. I betrayed your trust the first time, and now I've blown it again. Maybe you'll forgive me one day. But I should have known Severus never would. . . . 

Good-bye, Harry Potter. I wish I could have seen your Patronus, that night when you drove back the dementors. For just a few seconds, Prongs rode again that night. . . . You are truly your father's son, and of all those I leave behind, I owe you the most. It is only thanks to you that the tragedy I almost caused by my own negligence was avoided. 

I shouldn't complain. I should be used to it by now, this life of wandering, distrust and fear on every side. For I have, in fact, been extraordinarily lucky--there are those for whom these last twelve years have been far more hellish than than anything I have ever known. 

I am leaving, but what I have found in the last few days far outweighs whatever I have lost. 

For twelve years I have been alone, without any friends in the world, ever since that terrible night. 

It was on a stormy Halloween night that the only four people who had ever called me friend--who had ever even considered me human--were all taken from me at once, by a single tragedy. I shall never forget the day Professor Dumbledore brought me the news. Lily and James . . . dead. It was impossible. And yet it had happened. Despite all our precautions, our loyalty and our blind faith in each other, Voldemort had penetrated our inner circle and murdered the Potters. 

And that wasn't the worst of it. James had told me, before, how they had protected themselves, and I knew who had to be to blame if that protection had failed. The news of Peter and Sirius didn't reach me until later, but already, as soon as Dumbledore told me the Potters were dead, it was devastatingly clear what must have happened. 

A few days later, the bodies of Lily and James Potter were laid to rest in Godric's Hollow, and on the same day Sirius Black was tried and convicted of murder, sentenced to life imprisonment in the dread wizard fortress of Azkaban. All that they found of Peter Pettigrew was his finger, which was sent to his mother along with the Order of Merlin, First Class, for his hopeless attempt to single-handedly track down and capture a powerful Dark Side wizard. . . . 

I never saw Sirius after the murders. Two days after the trial, he was taken to the grim, rocky island where he was to spend the rest of his days. His name and face were plastered all over the front pages of the Daily Prophet for several days, though . . . along with James' old Hogwarts photos and pictures of his sleeping son, Harry ("The Boy Who Lived!" the Prophet triumphantly declared) with a bleeding cut in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead. Sirius looked half-crazy in those black-and-white photos, his eyes wild in his pale face. But whenever I thought of him all I saw was the tense but determined expression he had worn, the last night we were together. 

We had all come down to Godric's Hollow for one last evening together before the Fidelius Charm was performed and we parted company, for how long we didn't know. James and Lily would have to lie low, until Voldemort gave up looking for them or his power declined. Sirius would have to flee, leaving everything behind, pursued by Voldemort's agents, who undoubtedly would guess that he would be chosen as Secret-Keeper. As for Peter and myself . . . we had made up our minds to go into hiding as well, somewhere nearby. While we were not his prime targets, it was still likely that Voldemort would love to kill us, or to capture either of us for any number of equally unpleasant purposes. 

The last meeting of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs was a solemn affair indeed. James looked tired, I remember, the result of too many anxious, sleepless nights. Peter looked as nervous as I felt; he sat near the window rubbing his hands together, darting a glance outside every few minutes as though he expected to see Voldemort come strolling up the front walk at any second. 

Sirius, on the other hand, seemed to deal with the tension with a forced, almost manic cheerfulness. Reminiscing about the old days at Hogwarts, he proceeded to recount some of the more amusing (in retrospect) scrapes he had gotten into during our school years. No one felt much like laughing, though. The knowledge that the most evil wizard who had existed in more than a century was bending all his considerable resources to finding us weighed heavily on all our minds. Only Lily, rocking Harry in her chair by the fire, seemed outwardly calm. Though tired, she looked as beautiful as always, with the firelight shining on her long red hair. She sat silently while the rest of us attempted to make conversation, holding James' hand and smiling gently at Sirius' jokes. 

For a few hours after dinner we tried to chat about old times, but it eventually became obvious, even to Sirius, that our hearts weren't in it. Silence gradually descended, and we stared into the crackling flames, or gazed thoughtfully at the faces of the friends we might never see again. It was getting late, but none of us wanted to be the first to say good-bye. 

Finally, Sirius stood up. He pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it briefly. We all looked at him as he snapped it shut. 

"I should be leaving soon," he said into the silence. We regarded him for a moment without speaking, as men regard one condemned to death. He seemed to sense that none of us expected to see him again, for he forced a laugh and said, "Come on, surely you don't think Voldemort can catch me?" He emphasized the last word with his familiar bravado--an attempt to make us all laugh, but it failed miserably. We only looked at him somberly, except for Peter, who flinched at the sound of the Dark Lord's name. 

"Well," James said at last, standing up also, "I guess . . . this is it." He glanced round quickly at all of us, then back to Sirius. 

Sirius nodded, and stuck out his hand. As they shook hands, James cleared his throat awkwardly. 

"Padfoot, I'll never be able to tell you. . . ." He stopped, began again. "What I mean to say is . . . how can I ever--ever begin to thank you for everything you've done for us . . . ?" 

"Forget it, Prongs," Sirius told him, with a quick shake of his head. "You'd do the same for me and you know it." 

A ghost of smile, the first I'd seen from him all evening, crossed James' face for an instant. He and Sirius had not stopped shaking hands, nor did they stop now, continuing for a while longer until it would have seemed quite ridiculous had the situation not been so grave. Neither one wanted to be the one to let go, to say good-bye. 

"Oh, hang it all!" Sirius exclaimed suddenly, dropping James' hand and pulling his friend into a bear hug. "You take care, buddy," he said as he pulled away, and for just a second his voice caught. 

James' eyes were wet as he stepped back, punching Sirius' arm in a playful gesture reminiscent of happier times. "You, too, old fellow," he said in a half-choked voice. "You, too." 

"Hey, don't ever worry about me." Sirius turned to Lily, who had risen with Harry in her arms, and when he bent to kiss her there were tears on her cheeks. He then looked for a long time at his godson, before briefly touching Harry's black hair. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but instead he merely smiled sadly. 

He shook my hand warmly, then Peter's, and though he said nothing to either of us I noticed a look pass between him and Peter that I could not interpret. But it seemed to communicate volumes, as he held Peter's eyes until Peter nodded. 

He crossed the room then in quick strides, without looking back as he opened the door. 

Abruptly I rose from my seat, not knowing what I would say, but knowing that I had to say it just the same. Hurrying toward the door, I called after him. 

"Sirius!" 

Standing in the doorway, the cold autumn wind blowing his shaggy black hair into his face, he glanced back at me. Those burning gray eyes fixed on mine, waiting, and suddenly the words were gone. So I only said, "Be careful." 

"Always, Remus," he assured me. 

I wasn't at all reassured; long acquaintance with Sirius Black had taught me that the word careful had never been a part of his vocabulary. 

"I mean it, Sirius," I insisted, my eyes pleading. For once in your life, use a little caution. Just a little common sense, if you ever had any. "I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning and read in the paper that you've done something stupid, and gotten yourself killed." 

His face softened, and I could tell he was struggling for words, like there was something he wanted to tell me but he wasn't sure how. With a sudden swift motion, he reached out and gripped my shoulder. He gave me a long, intense look, as if begging me to understand that which he could not say aloud. I nodded slowly, my throat too tight to speak. There are some things you simply cannot put into words. 

For a second more we stood thus, during which a strange expression flickered across his face, one I didn't understand then. Afterwards I would wonder if it had been guilt. But there was no more time to puzzle over it, for at that moment he turned away. James and Lily and Peter stood behind me in the doorway, watching as he walked slowly down the path. A dark silhouette in the light of a nearly full moon, his robes billowed out around him in the biting wind. Faintly I heard the sound of the dead leaves crunching beneath his boots. 

It would be twelve years before I saw him again. 

Barely a week later, I knew something was up. Two days after that last evening, I had found myself an abandoned, rather dilapidated cottage, secluded in a forest some ten miles from Godric's Hollow, and gone into hiding myself. For the next few days I had stayed inside the house for most of the time, waiting. Waiting for news, good or bad. Tidings from Dumbledore that the coast was clear and I could come out. A visit from Sirius perhaps, to say that he had successfully drawn the Dark Lord's agents away from Godric's Hollow, and shaken off pursuit. Or that which I dreaded--the front page of the Prophet, saying that Sirius had done something foolish, and been killed or captured. 

Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine what the news would actually be, when it finally arrived. 

I knew something was going on when five owls flew overhead past my bedroom window, headed in the same direction, fairly low and in broad daylight with no attempt to conceal themselves. It was the morning after the full moon, and after a long night spent locked in the cottage, ripping up the furniture and doing my very best to knock the walls down, I awoke feeling very ill and so exhausted I could hardly crawl out of bed. My mind, however, was clear enough to register this profusion of owls as being highly unusual, so I dragged myself into the kitchen and sat down by the window, in one of two chairs that were still intact. What I really wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep for about a week, but instead I sat there all day, keeping a lookout for any more such strange occurances. Sure enough, three more owls appeared minutes later, heading in a different direction. I watched them as they approached, both hoping and dreading that one of them carried a message for me. They all disappeared quickly, though. But more soon arrived to take their place, until I could hardly look out my window at any moment that day without seeing at least one in the sky. What, I wondered frantically, was going on? Things grew even stranger with the coming of night. For several hours, before I finally fell asleep, I stared out my window in perplexity at the blue and gold and crimson wizard fireworks that kept exploding, flinging showers of sparks across the heavens. What was being celebrated? This isolation was unbearable, and the lack of news was driving me mad. I was not given to know why until midmorning the next day, when I heard the knock on my door, which jerked me out of an unpleasant dream to find that I had fallen asleep in my chair. I was still feeling poorly as a result of two nights ago, and staying up last night to watch the fireworks hadn't helped any. Still, when I heard the knock I jumped to my feet, going to the door as quickly as I could, all the fears and uncertainties that had tormented me throughout the past week clamoring in my mind. I had wrenched the door halfway open in my impatience before remembering that I was in hiding and should use more caution, but it turned out there was no need. The man outside was none other than Albus Dumbledore . . . and he did not look as if he had been celebrating. I held the door open silently as he came in, waving him to one of the rickety old chairs, and waited breathlessly for him to speak. He declined the chair and stood stroking his long, silver beard, saying nothing as my apprehensions grew. 

"Well?" I finally demanded. "What's going on, Professor? What are all the fireworks about?" 

He seemed to focus, his eyes behind their half-moon spectacles fixing on me for the first time. I couldn't help noticing that those eyes, normally alight with good humor, were not twinkling now. 

"Oh, the fireworks?" he said absent-mindedly. "The entire magical community has been celebrating since yesterday morning--you won't have heard, I forgot. Voldemort's been defeated. He's gone." 

I stood there for several seconds with my mouth hanging foolishly open. Voldemort gone? A wan smile broke out across my face . . . only to die quickly when I realized that Dumbledore was still looking at me gravely. 

"What else?" I asked, fearing the answer. Sirius, I thought. He was captured before Voldemort was defeated, and executed . . . or he went after Voldemort himself, and they both killed each other . . . it was just the sort of thing he would do. . . . Dumbledore was silent, and I demanded impatiently, "What is it?" 

"I'm very sorry, Remus," he began, and my breath froze in my chest. 

"Sirius?" I whispered. 

"How do you know?" Dumbledore frowned. 

"He was Secret-Keeper," I said numbly. "I knew Voldemort would be after him . . . he always was too reckless. . . . How did he die?" 

Now Dumbledore looked puzzled. "Sirius? He's not dead. It's Lily and James." 

"But . . . but that's impossible!" I exclaimed. "How could he have found them? I thought the Fidelius Charm was unbreakable!" 

"It is," Dumbledore said grimly. Confused, I was shaking my head in disbelief. It couldn't be true. 

"But you said . . ." I protested. "You said when you suggested it that when the Fidelius Charm is performed . . . the secret can't be found. There's no way even Voldemort could break the spell! You said it yourself, that the secret would be impossible to find once the charm was performed, unless . . . unless the . . ." I felt the blood drain suddenly from my face as I took a step back, shaking my head violently at the expression that appeared just then in the Headmaster's eyes. 

"No . . . oh, dear God, no . . ." I swayed backward, trembling, the old wizard's face blurring before my eyes as my mind screamed in denial. "It's not true. . . ." 

"Here . . ." Dumbledore's voice, sounding very far away, reached me through a whirl of anguished disbelief. "Sit down." Firm hands guided me to a chair, and I allowed myself to sink into it without protesting. My head was spinning as I buried my face in my hands. 

"It's not possible," I said weakly. "He wouldn't . . . he couldn't . . . he would have died first, I know it. . . ." It couldn't be, I cried silently. This has to be some kind of horrible mistake . . . no one loved James more than he did . . . I knew him, we went to school together . . . he was my friend . . . he committed a crime, risked expulsion from the school, all on account of me . . . he wouldn't betray us, I know it! 

Dumbledore was saying something, words of comfort, perhaps, but I didn't hear. All I could see, though I squeezed my eyes shut to block the memory, were those burning gray eyes as they had last held mine, seconds before he had turned away--and that swift, unidentifiable flicker of emotion that had crossed his face for only a second. Had it been guilt? 

I didn't hear the rest of it until the next morning, when the owl flew in with the Daily Prophet, and I saw the faces of my three best friends staring at me from the front page, along with a picture of a street that looked like a bomb had it it. Already numb with shock, I read the article slowly . . . how Peter had somehow found out days ago what had happened, and tracked Sirius down . . . the duel in the street, surrounded by a crowd of Muggles . . . Peter's last words . . . how Sirius had blown him to smithereens, and how twelve Muggles were caught in the blast. 

Sitting at the table in the kitchen, I read it over several times, while Peter and James smiled brightly at me from pictures that had been printed of our graduation day. Sirius' picture, taken after his capture, showed him looking wild-eyed, almost crazy, and my last words to him sprang then, unbidden, to my mind. 

"I don't want to read in the paper tomorrow that you've gone and done something stupid. . . ." 

I picked up the paper and flung it across the room with a violent motion, staring after it as it skidded across the dusty wood floor to lie, a tumbled pile of parchment, in the corner of the tiny kitchen. 

"Why?" I whispered brokenly to the empty room. "Why?" 

I stood up, and in a burst of sudden rage such as I had never experienced save during my transformations, I seized one of the rickety wooden chairs, and lifting it over my head I hurled it into the wall. One of the legs struck the window, and as the chair rebounded from the wall, the crash was accompanied by the tinkle of breaking glass. 

For a moment I stared blankly at the jagged hole in the window, feeling the cold breeze blowing in, hitting my face. All my energy seemed suddenly drained away, and I sank weakly into the other chair, slumped forward across the table with my head buried in my arms. 

And then the tears came, for the first time since the terrible news had reached me, a flood of grief pouring out unchecked as the realization hit me that I was alone--truly alone in the world, for the first time since I was only eleven years old. For a long time I stayed thus, sobbing bitterly, uncontrollably, while the chill wind blew through the broken window, rustling the pages of the Prophet which lay abandoned on the floor. 

Of the months following the deaths of James and Lily, I remember very little clearly, though I believe I spent much of that time sitting alone in various dingy pubs around London. What dim memories I have of those days, I do not usually care to recall in great detail. During the time immediately following those horrible events, I felt adrift in the world, cut loose from everything that had once tied me to life, bereft of all that had ever mattered. I was like a leaf--dry, brittle, fragile--tumbling over and over in a strong wind, out of control, with no one and nothing to cling to break my fall. 

It was almost two months later that I found myself standing all alone on London Bridge, several hours after night had fallen. I believe it was Christmas Eve, although I can't be sure. Along all the streets, garlands and wreaths and cherry-red bows adorned every door. It was raining, a slow, dismal drizzle drifting down from clouds that covered up the stars. The only illumination was from the dim yellow streetlamps, and in their faint light I could see the raindrops splashing into the dark waters of the Thames. 

I was drunk, though less so than I had been in recent days--not enough, this time, to block the pain from which I'd been trying to hide. Leaning against the bridge rail, I searched my pockets, finding only a few bronze knuts and a handful of Muggle money. I shivered, pulling my wet, worn robes more tightly around me. Somewhere, from a Muggle house, I could hear music faintly--a piano was playing "Silent Night," almost drowned out by the rain. All is calm, I thought, glancing up and down the darkened, deserted bridge. Not too bright, though. I looked up, staring at the black sky, blanketed by impenetrable clouds, with not a star in sight. I swayed slightly, the raindrops sliding down my face as I gripped the rail for support, gazing down once again at the water. The river was rough tonight, ruffled by the wind into little whitecaps, contrasting sharply with the blackness of the waters, which seemed that night to hold an almost hypnotic fascination for me. Coming swiftly toward me, then disappearing beneath my feet, the river flowed on, never slowing. Something about the river drew me that night, so like the dark flow of painful emotion in my heart, until I could almost imagine myself being carried along with it, gliding onward to wherever was its eventual destination, enfolded in its freezing cold embrace. . . . Something grasped my shoulders then, hands pulling me away from the rail, and I looked up, befuddled, shaking my head in an attempt to clear it. 

"Lupin? Remus Lupin?" 

Blinking in the rain, I could make out, vaguely, a darker silhouette in front of me. It was impossible to make out the man's features, but the sheer size of him gave away his identity. 

"What're yeh doin' out here, boy?" Rubeus Hagrid's voice was sharp, almost angry, as he pulled me unceremoniously after him, off the bridge and onto the dimly lit street. I could only shake my head, as in the dim light under a streetlamp, he paused and peered closely at me. 

"Good God, lad, yer soaked ter th' skin," he said, shrugging out of his enormous greatcoat and draping it over my shoulders. "Of all th' crazy, insane. . . ." he muttered, and I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or to himself. "You, of all people . . . I'd've expected yeh ter have more sense 'n that." He scowled at me fiercely for a second before lapsing into silence again, seizing my arm and hustling me along the street. Confused, I had no choice but to follow. 

The Leaky Cauldron was nearly empty when Hagrid flung open the door, shoving me inside and shouting in a stentorian voice for the bartender. The sudden warmth inside the pub hit me in wave, a sharp contrast to the chill of the outside, and I stumbled as he dragged me toward a table near the back and pushed me into a chair. The bartender, a little, balding wizard in a battered top hat, appeared beside the table, and scuttled away again to fill Hagrid's curt order. Seconds later he returned, banging two large tankards down on the grimy table. 

Hagrid pushed one at me, taking a gulp from the other and setting it down with a thump, his beetle-black eyes flashing under his dark brows as he fixed me with a sharp look. 

"Now," he began, wearing an expression I hadn't seen on him since the last time he had chased Sirius and me out of the Forbidden Forest, "jus' what in the 'ell did yeh think yeh were doin' out there, jus' now?" 

I could not meet his eyes; instead, I reached for the tankard. The ale was very strong and tasted terrible, but still I drained half of it in one gulp, setting it down again amid a flurry of coughing. Hagrid narrowed his eyes, folding his hands on the table and leaning forward. 

"Dumbledore asked me ter keep an eye on yeh," he confided, "an' now I can see why. I always thought yeh were a sensible lad--mos' sensible o' the four o' yeh, but . . . I suppose this is abou' yer friends?" 

I stared at the dirty tabletop and nodded miserably. He stroked his bushy black beard as I raised my tankard once again. His voice, when he spoke, was still sharp, but kindly. 

"An' I suppose yer wonderin' why it is that yer alive when them all is dead, is that it?" 

I glanced quickly up at him, and saw that his fierce face had softened. That had indeed been one of the questions I'd asked myself over and over these past few months, though even that was not the one that tormented me the most. 

As though he understood my thoughts, Hagrid nodded. "I know what else yer wonderin', too, lad. . . ." His expression was sympathetic as he reached out to clap me on the shoulder. "An' I can't give yeh th' answer to that one, either. . . ." Taking another long swig of ale, he let out a long sigh. "I tell yeh, never woulda thought it . . . never woulda thought he'd. . . ." He broke off, shaking his head, and then he glared at me again. "Now listen here, lad, what happened ain't yer fault, and there weren't nothin' yeh could've done abou' it." He waved a hand sharply when I would have interrupted. "I said," and he scowled at me "there weren't nothin' yeh could've done, an' sooner or later yer gonna have ter realize that an' get on with yer life! No, I don't want ter hear it--you listen ter me. What d'yeh think yer three friends--what d'yeh think James 'n' Lily 'n' Peter would want fer yeh ter do, eh? D'yeh think any o' them would want ter see yeh mopin' abou' fer months, an' tryin' ter jump off bridges? If James was here, he'd have plenty ter say abou' that, make no mistake! But he ain't, so seems like it's up ter me t' knock some sense into that thick 'ead o' yours." He gave me another fierce glare. I finished the tankard before me and waved to the bartender for more. My hand shook as I knocked back several swallows. "What's the point?" I burst out angrily, slamming my fist down on the table. "They were all I had in the world, the only people who ever called me friend, who accepted me in spite of . . . in spite of everything! An' where was I, when they needed me?" There were tears gathering in my eyes now, but I did nothing to stop them. "What should I do, then?" I demanded. "What can I do? Nobody else wants anything to do with me . . . I'll never find any other friends . . . or even a bloody job, damn it! What would you have me do, since you're so convinced my life is still worth living?" 

"Now jus' what in 'ell d'yeh mean, never find no friends . . . or a job?" He shook his shaggy head exasperatedly. "Well, naturally yeh ain't gonna impress nobody hangin' aroun' drunk all day, but once yeh quit this foolishness. . . ." 

"Isn't it obvious? Who the hell wants to be friends with a . . . with a . . ." Some part of my ale-fogged brain registered the fact that Hagrid was frowning at me in confusion, and I remembered just in time that he would, of course, have no idea why I would have trouble finding friends, or a job. I shut my mouth and reached once again for a drink, draining the rest of the tankard quickly. "Why?" I demanded suddenly, blinking furiously as more tears stung my eyes. "Why did this have to happen?" My voice broke, and I could only stare at him as the tears streamed down my face. Hagrid's black eyes now held only a vast pity, as he patted my shoulder awkwardly. "It . . . it was supposed . . . to be a . . . to be a perfect plan," I choked out. "Dumbledore said . . . an unbreakable charm . . . as long as the Secret-Keeper kept silent . . . my God, I still can't . . . can't believe it. . . ." I shook my head, looking at him as though expecting him to have the answer to the question that burned in my tortured mind. "Why did he do it? Why . . . why would he do such a . . . such a thing? I never . . . can't believe it, I just . . . can't believe it. . . ." "I know," Hagrid said quietly, sympathetically. "Of all th' people to turn ter the Dark Side . . . but there's no explainin' why, when a wizard turns bad, there ain't no tellin' what he'll do . . . ain't nothin', ain't no one that'll matter to 'im anymore. . . ." 

I covered my face with my hands, slumping forward over the table, not even trying to stifle my sobs. I was hardly aware of Hagrid's hand on my shoulder, or his voice murmuring something unintelligible, as my tears fell on the grubby tabletop. 

I will never know how long I cried then, or how many of the Leaky Cauldron's other patrons were staring at me. After an indeterminable period of time, however, I looked up, blinking my reddened, puffy eyes, and waving an unsteady hand at the bartender. Hagrid, however, shook his head firmly. 

"I think yeh've had enough ter drink, lad," he told me, and from his voice I knew there would be no arguing with him. "C'mon now, le's get yeh ter bed." 

And that is the last I remember of that night. The next morning, some few hours after dawn, I awoke in one of the upstairs rooms in the Leaky Cauldron, with the worst hangover of my life. 

Squeezing my eyes shut tight against the light pouring in through the window, I lay still, waiting for the pounding in my head to cease, and feeling as if someone was trying to drive a metal spike into the base of my skull. When it became obvious that the pain was not going to go away no matter what I did, I slowly sat up, blinking rapidly and squinting in the bright morning sunlight. A quick glance around the room revealed Hagrid, lying on the other bed, still asleep and snoring loudly. 

It took me several minutes to recall how I had gotten there, and when I finally did the memory of my behavior the night before was so mortifying that I could not stay and face Hagrid. I resolved to leave before he awoke, dressing as quietly as I could and scribbling a brief note on a scrap of parchment. 

Dear Hagrid, 

I squeezed the quill between my still-trembling fingers, casting about unsuccessfully for something appropriate to write. Dipping the quill once more, and nearly spilling green ink all over the bedside table, I penned a few more words. 

I don't know how to thank you for all you've done for me. Maybe we'll meet again someday, but for right now I can't stay here any longer. I'm sorry to leave without saying good-bye, and I'm sorry I made such a fool of myself last night. 

Please give my regards to Professor Dumbledore if you see him. 

R. J. Lupin 

I signed my name, and read over the brief note, wincing at the blatant inadequacy of the words. Then, remembering with a start what day it was, I dipped my quill a third time and scrawled a postscript at the bottom. 

Merry Christmas! 

I couldn't think what else to write, and I hadn't time to puzzle over a longer letter. Hagrid would be waking up soon, and I wanted to be long gone when he did. Searching through the pockets of my still-damp robes, I found the last of my wizard money, a few bronze knuts, and set them on the bedside table with the note. Then, carrying nothing except my old top hat and a handful of Muggle money, I tiptoed quietly out of the room and down the stairs. 

After leaving the Leaky Cauldron, I walked for a long time, not knowing precisely where I was going, until finally I found myself at King's Cross Station. After staring for a long moment, my heart seized with a painful nostalgia, at the barrier between platforms Nine and Ten, I eventually found my way to one of the Muggle officials and bought myself a ticket. Walking away toward the waiting train, I wasn't even sure where I'd just bought a ticket to, and at that moment I didn't really care. I just put it in my pocket without looking at it, and in a few minutes found myself seated by the window in an empty compartment, as the train rocked steadily along the tracks, speeding northward into the unknown. 

To be continued . . . 


	2. Default Chapter Title

Author's Note: Well, here's part two at last! It's not the conclusion yet . . . I thought this was only going to have two parts, but it's turning out a lot longer than I had anticipated . . . these stories do tend to take on a life of their own . . . Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the first part, and I hope you enjoy the next chapter! 

Disclaimer: These characters all belong to J. K. Rowling. I am not making any money off of this story, so please don't sue me! 

I rode the train north for several days, finally getting off somewhere in Scotland. For several years afterwards, I drifted around Scotland, searching for work, any work that would pay me enough to get by. It was never long, however, before my employers found out my secret, and as soon as they did I was always fired and told to move far away. No self-respecting witch or wizard would think of hiring a starving werewolf, and so two years later I decided to leave it all behind, forget I'd ever known anything about magic. After that, for the next ten years, I worked at various low-paying Muggle jobs, in factories and on construction sites. The work was hard, and the pay barely enough to live off of, but still I was grateful for it. It was a grueling routine, but it kept me from thinking too much. The long hours spent working used up all my time and energy, and left me little leisure for unrelated thoughts--and there was much, in those days, that I didn't want to think about. 

In the Muggle world, while my monthly disappearances often led to questions from my employers, none of them came near to guessing the truth. Werewolves, according to Muggles, did not exist. Thus during my self-imposed exile from the wizarding world, I was spared for a few years the fear and prejudice I had always encountered in non-Muggles. 

That wasn't the only reason, though, that I forsook the magical world during that period of my life. Hogwarts School, the Ministry of Magic, and all those places whose existence the Muggles knew nothing of--all of them were surrounded, then, by too many painful memories. Anything related magic invariably reminded me of James and Lily, and Peter . . . and Sirius. And during those years, all I wanted to do was forget. 

It was ten years before I encountered another wizard. I had been doing my best to avoid anyone remotely connected with the magical community, and so naturally I was rather irritated when I was finally found. 

I was working on a construction project, drilling holes in a road outside Edinburgh. It was mid-July, and unusually hot, with not a breath of wind as we worked under the broiling sun. Nearby, over the roar of my road-drill, I could hear a few of the other men grumbling to each other, cursing the weather. I didn't say anything, concentrating on the task before me as the road-drill bit into the pavement with an earsplitting clangor--to my mind it was better to work as quickly as possible, in the hopes of finishing sooner and getting out of the heat. 

Even without the heat, though, I had never been one for socializing with other workers in any of the jobs I had held. I had already acquired a reputation, among the men at this particular project, for being rather a solitary character, and no one much tried to be friendly anymore. That was the way I liked it--I wasn't looking for friends. My only object was to get enough money to live off of--and, at this moment, to get finished soon and inside the shabby (but hopefully cooler) apartment I had rented in the city for the past month. 

It was nearing the end of the day when I saw the car pull up across the street. It stood out quite sharply against the construction workers' drab, somewhat weathered-looking pick-up trucks. A small car, new and shiny-looking, it was painted a startling, dazzling shade of turquoise. I watched idly as through the window I saw the driver open a newspaper. His features were indistinguishable, but every now and then, as the sun gradually dipped lower in the sky, I glanced over to see him still sitting there, reading his paper and showing no sign of going anywhere. 

Nearly an hour later, when the foreman's whistle finally blew and I shut off my road-drill, mopping the sweat from my forehead with a large handkerchief, the car was still there. I had just put away my equipment, and was preparing to walk back to my apartment when I heard the foreman yelling my name. 

"Lupin!" I looked up, to see him waving at me. "Hey, Lupin! Someone over 'ere wants to talk t'ye!" 

Walking over, I saw that the driver had gotten out of his little turquoise car, and was standing beside the foreman. He was a tall man, and despite the heat he was wearing a long gray trench coat, with a bowler hat pulled down over his eyes. As I approached, he took off the hat, and I stopped, my mouth open. 

"Remus," Albus Dumbledore greeted me pleasantly. "Long time, no see." His blue eyes twinkled as he held out his hand. 

I took the hand by reflex, closing my mouth when I realized that the foreman was looking at me with a confused expression. 

"Headmaster," I managed. "What brings you here?" 

"You," he told me, with an enigmatic smile. "Had a devil of a time finding you, I must say." 

"I didn't want to be found," I said shortly, somewhat annoyed now that my initial surprise had faded. 

"Oh, I know that," Dumbledore agreed, smiling. "And, of course, I can see why--you look like you're doing very well here, as a Muggle. I hardly recognized you." His gaze took in my heavy construction books, my brilliant orange vest and hard hat, and I thought I detected a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Do you have a place to stay, or shall we go to my hotel?" 

"I do have an apartment," I informed him stiffly. "To which I was about to return, just now. If you'll excuse me." I turned to leave, but he refused to take the hint, placing a hand on my arm to stop me. 

"I came all the way up here hoping I'd get a chance to speak to you about something," he said quietly. He met my annoyed glare calmly, then waved a hand at the car. 

"Do you like this odd little contraption I've found?" he asked, as we walked toward it. 

"It's called a car, Headmaster," I informed him sourly as I opened the passenger side door and got in. Dumbledore only smiled and nodded happily. 

"Lovely, isn't it?" he said, turning the key in the ignition and pulling away from the curb far faster than any sensible person would have done. I did not respond, but sat in silence as the little car tore along the road back to the city. 

"So," Dumbledore began, steering around a sharp curve with one hand, while playing idly with the controls to the front windows with the other. "Aren't you going to ask me what the news is from the magical community?" He looked at me curiously, blue eyes twinkling enigmatically, and the car began to drift into the wrong lane. 

"No," I said flatly. Then, as he continued to watch me quizzically, I went on, "You know, these little contraptions generally tend to work better if you look at the road." 

He raised one eyebrow, then turned back to the road, swerving suddenly to avoid hitting an oncoming car. 

"Harry's started school," he informed me abruptly. 

I looked at him blankly. "Harry who?" 

"Harry Potter," he clarified. I started violently, gripping the handle of the door very hard. 

"And?" I inquired, straining to keep my voice level. 

"He's doing very well, actually," Dumbledore continued, in a conversational tone. "Almost as well as his father." 

I shut my eyes briefly, turning away toward the window so he couldn't see my face as he glanced swiftly over at me again. 

"He's gotten glowing reports from all his teachers," he went on. "Except for Severus Snape, of course. . . ." 

"Snape's a teacher now?" I demanded in spite of myself, frowning at him. 

"Oh, yes," he replied. "He teaches Potions, and he's the terror of all the students, not just Harry. Poor Severus . . . he's not been very popular, I'm afraid. . . ." 

I snorted. "Poor Harry! Whatever possessed you to hire him, anyway?" 

Dumbledore's smile widened. "Well, even you'll have to admit he always was brilliant at Potions. What he really wanted was the Defense Against the Dark Arts post . . . didn't get it, though, and he's spent the past few years terrorizing whoever did. . . ." 

I tried to imagine Severus Snape as a teacher, and failed. Either the man must have mellowed a great deal since the last time I'd seen him, or . . . I shuddered briefly. He'd been terrifying enough to me when we were both students. But Professor Snape . . . those poor students, I thought to myself. And little Harry Potter most of all . . . how would Snape treat him? I didn't even want to think about it. . . . 

Dumbledore slowed down slightly as we entered the city . . . though not by much. A chorus of angry horns blared behind us as the little turquoise car sped along the street. 

"Where's your place?" the Headmaster inquired. 

I pointed to a street sign just ahead. "Left, here." We turned onto a quieter street, and within a few minutes pulled up in front of the rather drab old building where I had rented an apartment for the past month. It was a small place, I thought as I opened the door and showed Dumbledore inside, and rather shabby. Dumbledore looked around appraisingly before sitting down on the old sofa by the window. 

"Tea?" I inquired, out of politeness. What I really wanted was to tell him to get lost--ten years ago, by my own choice, I had severed all the ties that had once bound me to the wizarding world, and I had no desire to be reminded of my past now. But I still had too much respect for Albus Dumbledore to throw him out, and I sincerely doubt it would have made any difference if I had attempted it. 

He waved a hand indicating I should sit down. I sat opposite him in an ancient armchair, leaning back and watching his face carefully, waiting for him to begin, to say whatever it was he had come to say. 

"Lovely place you've got here," he remarked, his tone that of a man making small talk about inconsequential things, but I thought I detected the sarcasm that didn't make it into his voice. He ignored my sudden scowl, and asked pleasantly, "Are you happy here?" 

An innocent question, I thought darkly, but by the expression in his blue eyes I could see he already knew the answer, and that he had some other purpose in asking. 

"I'm very happy here, thank you very much," I responded curtly. I had an unpleasant feeling that I knew where he was going with this line of inquiry, and by his face I could tell my answer hadn't fooled him for a second. 

"Really?" was his only response, and he raised one eyebrow. 

"What do you want from me, anyway?" I demanded, rather more harshly than I had intended. 

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. "To find out how you're getting along," he answered finally. "No one's heard anything of you in years." 

"It's not like anyone misses me terribly," I pointed out bitterly. "You may not believe this, but a lot of us at Hogwarts worry about you," he said. "Hagrid was keeping an eye on you for a little while, when you were still in London, but then you disappeared. For the longest time, he was furious with himself for letting you get away . . . convinced you were going to shoot yourself or something. . . ." 

I looked away briefly, wondering how much Hagrid had told him of our last meeting. 

"You know," Dumbledore began in a more serious tone, "there's no reason you have to live here, as a Muggle. There are plenty of jobs available these days for a trained wizard . . . a lot more interesting, and I dare say a lot more profitable than what you're doing now." 

I shook my head. "I'm fine where I am," I said. "There's no reason for me to go back." 

"Remus," said Dumbledore, his voice gentler, "it's been twelve years. It's about time you . . ." 

"It's not just that," I cut him off. "Muggles . . . are a lot more tolerant, I've found." 

He almost laughed. "Muggles, tolerant? Most of the ones I've met have a positively medieval attitude towards our kind." 

"You know what I mean," I said with a sudden glare. "They're less . . . suspicious, at least. Muggles refuse to believe that . . . that . . . creatures like me . . . even exist. It makes life a lot easier, not having to . . . to deal with that. . . ." My voice trailed off, and I turned away from the expression of pity Dumbledore could not quite conceal. 

"There's no reason for me to go back," I repeated. "There's no way any wizard would hire me, not if he knew . . . We're monsters, Headmaster, and we can't be trusted, you know that. The only ones who ever did . . . who ever did trust me . . ." 

I jumped out of my chair, suddenly unable to sit still any longer, and began to pace around the small room. Dumbledore's blue eyes followed me soberly as I moved back and forth, with quick, jerky strides, struggling against the painful emotions which the memory of those three still evoked. I stopped in front of him now, filled with a sudden, unreasoning anger at him for bringing it all back, just at a time when I'd almost begun to forget. 

"What do you want from me?" I asked again fiercely. "Why did you come here? Why couldn't you have left me in peace?" 

He looked up at me, calm and patient in the face of my anger. "I wanted to offer you a job," he said quietly. I blinked, staring at him in blank surprise for a few seconds before shaking my head with a sigh and sinking once more into my chair. 

"I told you, I don't want anything to do with magic anymore. I don't need your help, and I don't need you hunting up wizards who could be persuaded to take in a poor, lonely, starving werewolf because they feel sorry for him. I'm fine where I am, thank you very much, and I . . ." 

He cut me off with a brief wave of his hand. "You misunderstand me," he said. "I need your help, Remus." A faint hint of a smile flickered across his face at my look of confusion. "I was wondering if you'd accept a position at Hogwarts." 

"You've got to be joking," I said, finally. "Me, a teacher? What would the rest of the staff say? That's . . . outrageous. . . ." 

"No more outrageous than your becoming a student, twenty years ago," Dumbledore reminded me. 

I stared out the window, my mind filled with conflicting emotions, saying nothing for several minutes. 

"What subject would I teach?" I inquired softly, not looking at him. 

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," he replied. I turned back toward him with a bitter laugh. 

"How ironic that would be. Me, teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts? Headmaster, I'm what they're supposed to be defending themselves against! 

"Why don't you give Snape the Dark Arts job," I continued, "since you said he wants it so much? Why come to me?" 

"I like Severus where he is," Dumbledore said. "He's better at Potions, whether he wants to admit it or not. You, on the other hand, were always near the top of the Dark Arts classes, if you recall." 

Come to think of it, I had been, though I was surprised that he remembered it still, after all these years. 

"Who'd you have before?" I inquired. "And what happened to him?" 

The Headmaster sighed. "Don't ask," he told me wearily. "You wouldn't believe the problems I've had . . . I should warn you, I suppose, Remus--there are rumors beginning to fly around Hogwarts that this job is jinxed. Two teachers, in the last two years . . . neither of them lasted." He shook his head. "Neither of them were much good, either. Last year's . . . surely you've heard of--no, you wouldn't have. Gilderoy Lockhart was a rather prolific and quite well-known author of several adventurous--and, as it turned out, not entirely truthful--memoirs, before he decided to grace us with his presence at the school. Completely incompetent, knew nothing about the subject, and when the school was attacked last year by a giant basilisk--long story, I'll tell you later--he tried to run away and then accidentally wiped his own memory. And before that . . ." His face became more serious. 

"The teacher two years ago, Professor Quirrell, was in league with Lord Voldemort." I started, and he continued. "Tried to steal the Sorcerer's Stone--you do know what that is, don't you?" I nodded. "Well, he would have succeeded, if it hadn't been for young Harry Potter, once again." I sat in silence, staring at my hands and fighting to keep my emotions hidden as he recounted the tale of how Quirrell and the Dark Lord had been stopped. 

When he had finished, I asked, in a strained voice, "What year is he in, now?" 

"Third," he said. "He plays Quidditch for Gryffindor--youngest Seeker in the history of the school." I made a strangled-sounding noise, which he mercifully ignored as I blinked furiously, recalling all the times I had stood with Peter in the Hogwarts Quidditch stadium, watching while James and Sirius played. "He's a wonderful boy," Dumbledore continued. "You'll get on very well with him, I'm sure." 

"I haven't said I'm taking the position," I reminded him, my eyes narrowing. "How are you going to convince the school governors that I'm safe?" 

"The same way I convinced them twenty years ago," he replied mildly. 

"You still have the Whomping Willow?" I asked him, thinking with a painful twist of nostalgia that this time I would actually have to stay in the Shrieking Shack, like I'd always been supposed to, instead of roaming the grounds in secret with three unregistered Animagi. . . . 

"Oh, yes, it's still there," he said, with the faintest beginning of a smile. "And quite as--er--energetic as ever. Harry and a friend of his accidentally flew a car into it last year--" this time with a definite, though small, smile "--and it retaliated with its usual vigor. The boys weren't hurt, but the car was smashed." 

A flying car . . . the image flashed unbidden into my mind of the enormous flying motorcycle Sirius used to ride. He'd loved that motorcycle, I remembered, clenching one hand hard on the arm of the chair at the memory. He'd found it by the side of the road, crashed and bent all out of shape, and after repairing it painstakingly, he'd enchanted it in secret, with James' help of course, so that it would fly faster than the fastest broomstick. Peter and I both thought the idea extremely dangerous--so had James, in fact, though he'd helped anyway--but then when had the word danger ever meant anything to Sirius? 

I could still see him, sitting on that bike, dressed like a Muggle in black pants and a black leather jacket, all except for his high black wizard boots and brilliant green cloak, grinning down at me with that reckless, devil-may-care expression that I knew so well. How many times had he tried to persuade me to take a ride on that contraption? I could hear him now, shouting above the roar of the engine, his face flushed with excitement and his shaggy black hair blowing back in the wind . . . "Come on, Moony, she'll carry two of us! It's a thousand times better than a broomstick--you can't even imagine! What're you, scared?" 

I saw Dumbledore looking at me strangely, and shook my head abruptly to clear it, bringing my thoughts back to the present with an effort. 

"So you'll tell the governors . . . what I am?" I said, forcing my memories of Sirius out of my mind for the moment. "They might not agree, this time. . . ." 

"I can bring them around," he assured me. 

"Well, Severus won't like it, that's for sure," I told him. 

"Well, then," he said, and smiled. "What more incentive to come could you possibly need?" I stared at him in surprise, until with a self-deprecating laugh, he continued. "Severus'll get over it." 

No, he won't, I thought darkly, but didn't press the matter further. 

"Actually," he remarked, "we wouldn't need the Whomping Willow now, if you decided to come." I frowned at him, as he went on in the same offhand tone. "Not since the invention of the Wolfsbane Potion three years ago . . ." 

"The what Potion?" I demanded, sitting up abruptly and gripping the arms of the chair very hard. He looked at me with an expression of faint surprise, which might or might not have been feigned. 

"Oh, I thought surely you'd have heard . . . But of course, you've been out of touch for so long . . . you really should keep up with these things, Remus. You miss an awful lot, living as a Muggle for ten years. It was all over the Daily Prophet . . ." 

"What--Potion?" I repeated dangerously, through clenched teeth, struggling not to hope. 

"It's not a cure," Dumbledore said quickly, holding up a hand and becoming serious once more. "But it's something . . . a major breakthrough, in fact, the first in centuries . . ." I listened breathlessly, leaning forward, as he explained the capabilities of the Wolfsbane Potion. "It's a very complicated formula," he concluded, "and there are very few wizards who know how to brew it. However, we at Hogwarts are lucky enough to have with us one of these few, and I'm sure he would be only too happy to assist us." This last sentence was uttered with an ironic half-smile. 

"Let me guess," I said. "Snape?" 

He nodded, and I grimaced. I didn't like being beholden to Snape for anything--but if this potion really worked . . . ! My excitement at the thought almost overrode my misgivings about re-entering the magical world. 

"I haven't thought about magic in years," I warned him, a final protest despite the fact that I was almost convinced. "I don't know whether I'll still remember enough to teach it." 

Dumbledore smiled, his blue eyes twinkling in satisfaction as he stood up. "You've got a month and a half to relearn it all," he reminded me. He shook my hand, then moved toward the door. Stopping in the doorway, he said, "The Hogwarts Express will leave from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on September first, as usual. I'll look forward to seeing you there." And with a cheerful nod, he left the apartment. I watched his little turquoise car zoom away, standing at the window and wondering at the strange and unexpected turn my life had suddenly taken. 

And so it was that I found myself, little more than a month later, stepping through the magical barrier onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters for the first time in fifteen years. 

The platform hadn't changed much--the milling crowd of parents and children, dressed in robes, carrying wands and owl cages--the bright scarlet train sitting on the track, with the familiar sign, "Hogwarts Express"--all were just as I remembered them. Except that this time, all the faces were strangers. As I looked around, I could see everywhere young witches and wizards saying good-bye to their parents--none, however, students or parents, were familiar to me. For just a second, staring around at all the young faces, I almost expected to see James and Sirius and Peter pushing through the crowd toward me, all grinning at the thought of whatever new plans they'd dreamed up to cause chaos during the new school year. 

I shook myself back to the present with an effort. They were gone, I reminded myself sternly. I'd never see any of them again, so it didn't do any good to keep thinking about them all the time. I picked up my battered old suitcase and began to make my way slowly toward the train. 

I remember little of that journey to Hogwarts, save for the last stage when we were nearly there. It was the morning after the full moon when I set out, and I was so exhausted when dawn came that all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and forget about the rest of the world for several weeks. Only the thought of Hogwarts, and the Wolfsbane Potion--the thought that last night's transformation would be my last--enabled me to drag myself out of bed. 

My mirror was rather critical when I consulted it just before leaving my apartment. I hadn't worn my old black wizard's robes in more than a decade, and they looked moth-eaten and rather shabby. Patched and darned in many places, they seemed hardly fit for a teacher to wear. Still, it was either that, or my Muggle clothes, and I didn't think Dumbledore would want me to show up dressed as a Muggle. 

My hair had begun to turn gray, as well. I'd been aware of this for some time, but I'd never really thought about it before. I combed it quickly, wondering vaguely whether werewolves aged more quickly than normal people, or if it was just a result of too much stress and grief at an early age. But I didn't want to think about that. 

My face, in the mirror, looked pale and drawn, and altogether I probably looked about ready to fall apart--which that was kind of how I felt that morning. Still, I somehow managed to drag myself down to King's Cross Station. 

Boarding the train, I immediately sought out an empty compartment near the back, where I hoped I wouldn't be disturbed. A plump, smiling witch in brand new robes and a shiny, pointed hat accosted me in the corridor, handing me a newspaper and advising me brightly that there was a compartment reserved for the teachers at the front. I thanked her politely and continued toward the back. I didn't feel like socializing with the other professors--especially not if Severus Snape was there. I really didn't feel up to dealing with him, not now. 

Sinking gratefully into a seat by the window, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. After only a few moments, though, I shook myself awake, smoothing the newspaper on my lap, figuring that now I was back in the wizarding world, I really ought to catch up on the news and find out what was going on. 

The black and white picture dominating the front page was completely unfamiliar at first glance, a second before my eye was caught by the big, bold headline just above it. 

BLACK STILL AT LARGE 

Sirius Black, possibly the most infamous prisoner ever to be held in Azkaban fortress, is still eluding capture, the Ministry of Magic confirmed today. . . . 

Stunned, I dropped the paper on the floor, and it was a few moments before I recovered enough presence of mind to pick it up again. The first coherent though that crossed my mind was, That's impossible. And then, If anyone could manage something like that, it would be Sirius. I retrieved the paper from the floor, and scanned the article. The paper was dated more than a week ago--where was he now? I wondered. The Ministry, it said, had so far had no luck in finding him. Even the feared Azkaban guards, the article went on, were baffled as to how he had escaped. 

I stared at the black-and-white photo, trying to discern, in that starved, skull-like visage, the features of the man who had been one of my closest friends. He was almost unrecognizable. His hair, always shaggy and nearly down to his shoulders, had grown far longer, and appeared wild and matted. His gaunt face might have been that of a corpse save for those sunken eyes, which blinked slowly at me. It seemed nearly as if he was looking straight at me, with an expression that was almost frightening. I had heard many stories, over the years, of the fortress of Azkaban--it was said that most of the prisoners there went mad within a few weeks, and after my own brief encounters with dementors many years ago, I could easily understand why. Sirius appeared mad, in that photo. He no longer resembled in any way the reckless, laughing, mischievous young man who had been my friend for nearly ten years. 

But then, Sirius had never been what he had seemed to be in those days, I thought, and my heart twisted painfully as I shoved the paper aside, not wanting to think about it anymore. Still, the question nagged incessantly at me: How had Sirius escaped from Azkaban? And another, perhaps even more troubling thought . . . why had he broken out? Where was he headed, and what were his intentions? 

I leaned back wearily in my seat, closing my eyes and trying to banish the memories of Sirius which now returned, with agonizing clarity, as though we had parted for the last time only yesterday. 

I heard then, far away above the noise of parents' shouted farewells and students' excited chattering, the chugging of the engines as the train began to move. The car began to sway as we pulled away from the platform. I rested my head against the cold glass of the window, not even looking up when I heard the door to the compartment open. Within minutes I was fast asleep. 

To be continued . . . 


	3. Default Chapter Title

Author's Note: Author's Note: Part three is finally finished! Hope you enjoy it! 

Disclaimer: These characters all belong to J. K. Rowling. I am not making any money off of this story, so please don't sue me! 

I woke to complete darkness with James' laugh still ringing in my ears. Shaking off the dream and the memories it had evoked, I blinked, disoriented. It must be night, I thought . . . but what had happened to the lights? 

The compartment was no longer empty, I realized. I could hear children's voices nearby, anxious and confused. 

"What's going on?" 

"D'you think we've broken down?" 

"What's happening?" 

"No idea . . ." 

"Who's that?" 

"Who's that?" 

I realized then that the train had stopped. We were no longer moving. What had happened? 

Then I heard it--a faint yell of surprise and fear from another compartment. I sat up, suddenly completely awake. 

"Quiet!" I said, in a hoarse almost-whisper. The voices in our own compartment fell silent, and I thought, We must have light. I muttered a few words quickly, hoping that I'd remembered the spell correctly, and the next second a small fire had appeared in my cupped hands. Instantly the compartment was illuminated by the flickering light of the flames, falling on the anxious faces of the students as they stared at me. 

"Stay where you are," I told them, rising to my feet with an effort. 

It was at that moment that the door to the compartment slid open. I heard a frightened gasp behind me as I stepped forward, shivering at the sudden chill in the air. 

A tall figure stood in the doorway, enveloped from head to foot in long, black robes. Its face was hidden by its black hood, but I recognized it immediately as it glided through the doorway, stretching out a grayish, slimy, rotted hand. It was a dementor--one of the dreaded Azkaban guards. 

The air was freezing cold, and my hands felt nearly numb despite the warmth of the flames I still held. All of a sudden my vision blurred, darkness hovering at the edges of my sight, and I gripped the back of a seat as the compartment, and the dementor in the doorway, were replaced by another scene--one I hadn't seen in more than a decade, but that was still horrifyingly familiar. . . . 

I was standing in the middle of a street--or what remained of it. Just a few feet away, though I tried not to look at it, was the hole--a crater blasted in the center of the road, which looked like it had been bombarded by artillery fire. Rubble was strewn all along the street and on the sidewalks, and on the pavement I could see long black scorch marks. 

All along the sidewalks and in the street, Muggles were standing, huddled in groups, staring at the scene of devastation. Some were crying, leaning on one another, while others spoke quietly in hushed, shocked voices. I could hear them, breaking into my own tortured thoughts, their soft words striking at me like knives. 

"Three days ago . . . one second everything was normal, and then. . . ." 

"That's impossible . . ." 

"I'm telling you, I saw it with my own eyes . . . he pulled out this . . . this long stick, or something, and the next minute . . . blew it all to hell. . . ." 

"Blood everywhere, and people screaming . . . thirteen dead, and that madman . . . he just stood there, laughing, when they took him away . . . just laughing, like it was the funniest thing in the world. . . ." 

". . . that madman . . ." 

". . . just stood there . . . laughing . . ." 

". . . just laughing . . . funniest thing in the world . . ." 

Their voices echoed in my ears, those words repeating, over and over, like a broken record, till I wanted to scream, clap my hands over my ears. Laughing . . . I could see it, in my mind's eye, though I hadn't even been there. . . . 

Stop this, I told myself firmly, shutting my eyes, blocking the scene away with an effort. Swaying, clutching the back of the seat very hard for support, I opened my eyes and straightened, facing the dementor once more. Behind me, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the students, a round-faced boy, shrink back in horror, but I knew there was only one reason the Azkaban guards would come here. 

I stepped forward. "None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks," I said sharply, my voice seeming very loud in the deathlike silence that had fallen over the whole compartment. "Go." 

The dementor turned its invisible face toward me again, and I struggled to concentrate, to remember how these creatures could be driven off. I had reviewed last month all the magic I had thought I'd need to teach, but I'd never imagined I'd be required to fight dementors on my first day back. 

The words of the charm came to me by reflex, but that was the easy part. A happy memory . . . I had to concentrate on a happy memory. I cast about for one, with little success. Certainly nothing from the past twelve years would do. . . . 

It came to me abruptly as I pulled out my wand--that night, in the middle of our fifth year. The first midnight meeting of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. It was the night of the full moon, and as usual I was spending the night in that ramshackle old hut the villagers had begun to refer to as the Shrieking Shack. I had no sooner completed my transformation, however, when three animals came running down the passage and into the hut with me. We had all stared at one another for the space of a few seconds--I had never seen them as animals before, nor had any of them seen me in other than human form until then. I was surprised, and at first afraid that they would be horrified at the sight of me, though they had known my secret for three years. 

But after a moment, a light appeared in the eyes of the great stag which I had seen in James' many times--an unmistakable glint of mischief. The stag and the huge, bear-sized dog looked at one another with that identical glint in both their eyes, and then they turned back to me. The small gray rat scampered forward, stopping near my front paws and squeaking excitedly. We all found it hilarious, for some reason--the four of us all standing there staring at each other, unable to speak save in squeaks, barks, or growls. But for me it was more than just amusing--I was profoundly moved. For the first time in my life, during the full moon, when I was no longer myself but an inhuman monster, I was not alone. Any last lingering fears I had still harbored, that they would shun me once they saw with their own eyes what I became, were banished forever. 

I lifted my muzzle to the ceiling and gave voice to my great joy in the only way I could--I howled, long and loud, a high, unearthly sound. Peter jumped several inches into the air, startled at the sound. James just looked at me with a pleased expression, his eyes laughing silently. Sirius, on the other hand, joined in with his deep, growling voice, barking and snarling ferociously at me, his tail wagging energetically. 

That was the first night, the beginning of our illegal adventures, our midnight raids. We were young, then, and foolish . . . never thinking that one day . . . 

But no, I couldn't think of that, I reminded myself sternly. Think only of the happy memories. I concentrated hard, not thinking of what had come after . . . thinking only of the laughter in James' eyes, of Sirius barking and wagging his tail, of Peter's tiny, excited squeaks. . . . 

The dementor took a step forward. I heard a gasp from behind me, and a thud as of a body hitting the floor. I raised my wand. 

"Expecto Patronum!" I said loudly, clearly, and something large and silver erupted from the end of my wand, straight at the hooded figure in the doorway. Through the mist of silver, I saw it pause. I could feel its malevolent stare, though I could not see its face. Like a scratchy old record, the voices hovered at the back of my mind, growing gradually louder . . . someone was sobbing . . . Concentrating desperately, I saw the silvery shape before me waver as all my strength seemed to leave me . . . I could feel my legs buckling . . . I wouldn't be able to keep it there for much longer . . . Then, without a sound, it turned abruptly and glided away. 

The air was suddenly warm again, and I exhaled slowly, letting myself collapse weakly onto the seat. At that moment the overhead lights flickered, then came back on. There was a rumble of engines, and then I became aware of voices very near me, sounding worried. I forced myself to sit up and open my eyes, as the train began to move once more. 

Two students, a boy and a girl who looked to be about thirteen, were kneeling on the floor, bending over a third who lay sprawled on the floor. I reached into a pocket of my robes, finding a foil-wrapped bar of chocolate. Some, I reflected, were more affected by dementors than others, and it was no surprise that a student, with no training to protect against them, should react in such a way. I wasn't alarmed, though--now that the creature had left, whoever it was would be all right. I unwrapped the chocolate bar, as the girl turned to look up, pleadingly, at me. 

"He'll be all right," I assured her. "He's just . . ." 

It was then, as she moved aside and I saw the boy's face clearly for the first time, that I received my second shock of that day. 

I drew a sharp breath and fell silent, my eyes riveted to the boy lying on the floor. There was no need for me to ask who he was--even though his bangs hid the famous lightning scar, there was no mistaking his face. James' face . . . I knew, beyond any doubt, that those features and that unruly black hair could only belong to James Potter's son. 

"W-what?" His eyes were open now, and I could see that they were a brilliant green. Just like his mother's . . . 

"Are you okay?" one of the students inquired anxiously, as they helped him back onto a seat. 

When Harry spoke, his voice was shaky. "Yeah," he said. He looked at the door questioningly. "What happened? Where's that--that thing? Who screamed?" 

I wondered what it was he had heard, or what he had seen, when the dementor came in. The other two were confused. 

"No one screamed--" 

"But I heard screaming--" 

I broke the chocolate bar into several pieces, and they all glanced up at the noise. 

"Here." I handed the chocolate to the three students. "Eat it. It'll help." What was going on? I wondered. Why were the dementors looking for Sirius on the Hogwarts Express? 

"What was that thing?" Harry had turned to me, still holding the chocolate, untouched, in his hand. 

"A dementor," I replied, crumpling up the foil wrapper and getting wearily to my feet. "One of the dementors of Azkaban." They were all staring at me now, as I moved to the door of the compartment. "Eat," I repeated, motioning at the forgotten chocolate still in their hands. I had to find out what was going on, I thought as I opened the door. "It'll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me . . ." 

Exiting the compartment, I moved down the dimly lit corridor, which was filled with frightened, confused students. Walking quickly, I made my way toward the front of the train, muttering apologies as I bumped into several people. Seeing a taller figure, an adult, in long black robes, I caught at his sleeve. 

"What's going on?" I asked. The figure wheeled, and abruptly I was face to face with Severus Snape. 

Even after fifteen years, there was no mistaking his sallow features, the hooked nose and greasy, shoulder-length black hair. His black eyes flashed irritably, then narrowed as he, in turn, recognized me. 

We stared at each other for an instant. "You," he said finally, and the way he said it made it sound like a curse. 

"What's going on, Severus?" I repeated impatiently, growing annoyed. "What are dementors doing on this train?" 

"They're looking for your friend," Snape hissed, his voice venomous. "Or hadn't you heard?" 

"He's not my friend," I retorted shortly, stony-faced. I had no desire to be drawn into an argument now, especially not about Sirius. 

"Oh?" he said softly, raising one eyebrow. I glared, pushing past him angrily, feeling those black eyes fixed on my back as I hurried toward the front once more. 

When I finally reached the driver, he didn't appear too happy to see me. I gathered that he had received a lot of similar inquiries in the past five minutes. 

"They're lookin' for that escaped prisoner, Sirius Black," he told me irritably. "Don't you read the papers?" 

Not until recently, I thought to myself. "But why on earth would they look for him on the Hogwarts Express?" I demanded. "What would Sirius be doing here?" 

I saw the driver's eyebrows go up at my use of Sirius' first name, but he only replied, "How should I know? All I know is I've got a whole bunch of them creatures knockin' on my door, sayin' I've got me an escaped murderer on my train an' they wants to search for 'im, so who'm I to tell 'em no? I figure they knows better'n I do where he's at, and I'd rather have them on the train for a few minutes than Sirius Black!" He finished with a glare, motioning angrily for me to leave. "Now if you'd like to leave me to my own business, professor, I'd be mighty grateful!" 

I started to say something more, then thought better of it, heading back down the corridor with an inaudible sigh. 

Why were they searching for Sirius here? my mind demanded yet again. Could it be that they thought he was headed for the school? The thought was not a pleasant one. After all these years, after what he'd done, I had no desire to meet Sirius Black face to face once more. It was painful enough to see his face in the Daily Prophet, to read in the article beneath all the reminders of the crimes he'd committed. . . . 

But why in God's name would he go to Hogwarts, of all the places he could make for? With what I knew of his connections to Voldemort twelve years ago, I could only assume that he had broken out for the purpose of rejoining his former master. But why look for the Dark Lord here? Unless . . . 

Unless he was looking for me. The thought struck me suddenly, unpleasantly. Unless for some unfathomable reason, he actually believed I would help him. 

My fists clenched at my sides. He wouldn't, part of my mind protested. He's not that stupid. Why on earth would he expect that? But then, I reflected, after twelve years in Azkaban . . . it was said that people went mad in that place after only a few weeks. But if that was true, then how had he been able to break out in the first place? I wondered, confused. Stopping by the prefects' compartment, I borrowed an owl and a scrap of parchment. Pulling a quill from my pocket, I scrawled a few words. 

Professor Dumbledore, 

On our way to the school the Hogwarts Express was searched by dementors. This caused much distress among the students, and Harry Potter collapsed. Just what the-- 

I stopped, thinking that perhaps a more respectful tone might be warranted in a letter to my employer, and scratched out the last sentence. 

May I respectfully inquire as to what is going on here? 

R. J. Lupin 

I opened a window, and the owl leapt from my outstretched hand, the note clamped firmly in his beak, wings beating as he rose above the train and shot away out of sight. 

Ten minutes later we reached our destination at last, pulling into Hogsmeade Station. After several minutes of scrambling to collect luggage and get to the doors, we all finally got outside onto the tiny platform. It was raining as we disembarked, and bitterly cold; water poured from the slate-gray sky in buckets. Stumbling slightly in fatigue, I pulled my cloak more tightly around me, but found it did little good as we all made our way off the platform as quickly as possible, toward the line of stagecoaches waiting along the muddy track that led to the school. 

Harry Potter and his two companions got into one, and as I watched it roll forward I heard a familiar voice calling, "Firs' years this way! All firs' years, over 'ere!" Looking up, I saw that it was none other than Rubeus Hagrid, looking even larger than I had remembered, his long black hair streaming wet and plastered against his neck. He looked toward me, and for just a second I thought I saw a look of surprise and recognition cross his face. I turned quickly away then, heading toward the nearest empty coach. It was an enormous relief to climb in out of the rain and sink back into the seat. 

I didn't look up until I felt the carriage stop at the massive iron gates of Hogwarts School. They hadn't changed in fifteen years, since the last time I'd bidden them good-bye after graduation. Only today, I saw two more tall, black, hooded shapes flanking those gates. . . . So it was true, I thought. They must be sure Sirius was trying to get into Hogwarts--there was no way Albus Dumbledore would allow dementors within a hundred miles of the school, otherwise. Suddenly feeling sick, I shuddered briefly, leaning my head against the cold, rain-streaked glass of the window and closing my eyes. I didn't open them again until the coach drew up in front of the castle. 

I emerged from the coach still feeling shaky and weak, and I had to lean for a few moments against the vehicle before my legs would support me. Finally I straightened up and made my way up the stone steps, moving slowly along the corridor toward the office which was now mine. I had to be at the feast in less than fifteen minutes, and I wanted to drop off my suitcase first. 

No more than a few seconds later, I bumped right into none other than Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress, head of Gryffindor House, and my former Transfiguration teacher. 

"Now, really," she said sharply, looking up at me with that severe frown I remembered so well, "You ought to watch where you're--" She broke off suddenly, staring up into my face, eyes wide. "Lupin?" Her voice was soft, incredulous. "It is you, isn't it? Dumbledore told me you were coming, but I never quite believed it . . . then we got your owl. . . . Oh, I've been so worried about you!" And to my astonishment she pulled me into her arms, hugging me tightly. When she stepped back, I was surprised to see that her eyes were moist. 

"Well, it's good to be back," I said, not entirely sure it was the truth, but moved far more than I would have expected by her welcome. 

"Remus is here?" I heard another voice coming down the hall. "Where is that boy?" And before I knew it Madam Pomfrey was hugging me too, and saying in a very sniffly voice, "Where have you been all these years, you dreadful boy? All those years I spent patching you up . . . had my hands full, I can tell you, all the scrapes you four used to get into. . . ." She sniffed, blinking furiously. "And not once did you ever come to visit, or even drop us a line to let us know you were still alive! How was I to know you hadn't run off and gotten yourself killed somewhere?" She grabbed my shoulders, holding me out at arm's length. "And just look at you! You're soaked to the skin! You haven't been taking care of yourself, I know it. . . ." She pulled me into the light from one of the lanterns on the wall, peering up at my face. I didn't trust myself to speak; for some inexplicable reason, I too was close to tears. 

Professor McGonagall was squinting at me now, too, with that penetrating look in her eyes that she had given my friends and me too many times when were students. 

"Are you all right, Lupin?" she asked, a note of concern in her voice. "You don't look so well yourself . . . were you tangling with those dementors, too?" 

I waved a hand dismissively. "I'm all right," I said, my voice sounding strangely croaky. In fact, I felt near to collapsing, both from the encounter on the train and the transformation the night before, but I managed a wan smile at the worried looks they both gave me. 

"Look at you," Madam Pomfrey said again, still blinking tears from her eyes. "You're shivering all over. . . ." I was indeed shaking, from the cold and from exhaustion. She took off her own cloak then, draping it over my shoulders and pulling it around me tightly. "Come with me," she commanded, taking hold of my arm and tugging me after her. 

"I'm fine, really," I protested weakly as she dragged me down the corridor. "Just tired . . . had a rough day. . . ." Professor McGonagall gave a snort and seized my other arm. I lurched against her, unable to prevent myself from leaning heavily on her for support. We soon reached the hospital wing, and I sank limply into a chair, while Professor McGonagall bent over me, her face very worried now. 

"Poppy, what's wrong with him?" she demanded, and at the expression on her normally severe face I had a sudden, ridiculous urge to burst into tears. It had been so long since anyone had cared. 

Madam Pomfrey put her hand on my forehead, pushing me back as I tried to sit up. "Relax," she said firmly. "Don't you move." She bustled over to a cabinet and took out a large block of chocolate. "I suppose you tried to fight that thing," she said over her shoulder to me in an exasperated tone as she broke off a large piece. "Tried to drive it off by yourself . . ." 

"I did drive it off," I protested indignantly, as they both looked at me. 

"Of all the . . . dueling with dementors . . ." Madam Pomfrey was muttering. 

"Did you collapse, too, Lupin?" Professor McGonagall asked sharply. "I want the truth, now. . . ." 

"I most certainly did not!" I told her. 

"He'll be all right, Minerva," Madam Pomfrey assured her. "Just a good deal of rest," she said, narrowing her eyes at me, "and he'll be fine. As long as he doesn't do anything stupid . . ." Her expression told me she didn't have very much confidence in my ability to refrain from doing stupid things, as she turned to Professor McGonagall again. "Fighting dementors is hard on anyone, but for him . . . they would affect him more than other people, I think . . . especially at this time of the month. I don't suppose you've looked at the lunar chart lately, Minerva. . . ." 

At Professor McGonagall's look of swift comprehension, she turned back to me, now taking my pulse and handing me the chocolate. "Now I want you to eat all of that, you hear? There's a good boy." 

I took a bite of the chocolate, and to my surprise felt warmth spreading suddenly throughout my body. I sat up. 

"I really should be getting to the Great Hall," I told them, taking another bite of chocolate. "The feast will be starting any minute now, and Professor Dumbledore is expecting me . . ." 

"You're staying right here," Madam Pomfrey told me sternly. 

"They're expecting me . . ." I protested, but she interrupted me, stuffing a large piece of chocolate unceremoniously into my mouth. Professor McGonagall smiled at my look of consternation. 

"Finish your chocolate, Lupin," she said. "You certainly can't go up to the Great Hall right now. And those robes. . . ." She shook her head, hands on her hips, looking disapprovingly at my sodden, patched garments. "You look like you've been swimming. Why didn't you have an umbrella? Honestly, you're going to catch pneumonia one of these days. . . ." She pulled out her wand and levelled it at me. 

I started. "What are you doing?" I asked anxiously. 

"Relax," she told me impatiently. "I'm not challenging you to a duel, I'm just going to dry out your clothes for you." 

"Right," I muttered, flushing. "Sorry, Professor . . . old reflexes die hard, I guess. . . ." The last time anyone had pointed a wand at me had been when James and Sirius and Peter and I had been on the run from Lord Voldemort, and we'd all been cornered by agents of the Dark Side. 

"I can see they do," she responded with a rare smile. "You don't have to call me 'professor' anymore, Lupin. You're a teacher too, now, you know." She said a few words, and suddenly my robes were dry once more. Adjusting her spectacles, she eyed me critically. "I suppose it's an improvement," she said with a marked lack of enthusiasm. "But you really ought to get yourself some new robes." 

I sighed. "I know that, Prof--Minerva," I said. It felt very strange to call her that. I swallowed the last of the chocolate and stood up wearily. The chocolate and dry clothes did make a difference, though, I thought as I moved toward the door. 

"I want you right back here as soon as that feast is over," Madam Pomfrey called after me sternly. 

To my surprise, I found that I was ravenously hungry, suddenly remembering that I hadn't eaten all day. It felt strange, sitting at the front of the Great Hall at the long staff table, beside McGonagall and Dumbledore and Flitwick and all the professors who had taught me when I was at school. The only other teacher near my age was Severus Snape, who looked even more sour than usual, and kept shooting me venomous glances down the table like my presence was a personal insult to him. Dumbledore had said, I recalled, that Severus wanted the Dark Arts job, and it wasn't surprising that he would resent having me, especially, rob him of the position. However, there was something else in his expression when he looked at me, and after a moment I realized it was suspicion. 

Well, I thought to myself, you've got to admit it does seem like an amazing coincidence . . . Sirius escapes, and two months later his former best friend turns up at Hogwarts. And Sirius is apparently headed this way. . . . 

Why he was coming here was the question that still would not leave me alone. As soon as dinner was over and the Great Hall had nearly emptied, I accosted Professor Dumbledore on his way out the door. 

"What's going on here?" I demanded without preamble, falling into step beside him. He looked up, saw me. 

"Remus," he greeted me, his expression grave. "I was hoping to speak to you alone this evening." He pushed open the heavy Great Hall doors, and I followed him down the stone steps. "You've heard the news?" 

"What news?" I asked, as we turned onto a dirt path leading out across the castle grounds. "I know Sirius has escaped, if that's what you mean, but no one's told me how or why. . . ." I trailed off, staring at the horizon. The sun was setting over the lake, spilling blood-red light across the sky . . . but I saw only that emaciated face from the front page of the Daily Prophet. 

"There were dementors on the train, Headmaster," I said abruptly. "Terrified all the students . . . why?" I looked at him sharply. "Why would they look for him here? Why would he come here?" 

Dumbledore looked very serious, almost worried, and he stroked his silver beard thoughtfully before he replied. 

"I talked to Fudge--Cornelius Fudge, he's the Minister of Magic now--" 

I nodded. "I read it in the papers," I said, motioning for him to go on. 

"He went out to Azkaban, the night Black escaped, and talked to the guards. No one has any idea how he broke out. No one's ever done it before." 

"I know that," I said. 

He went on, as I watched the setting sun's light gilding the ripples on the lake. "They said he'd been talking in his sleep, before he escaped, for more than a month. Always the same words, over and over . . . 'He's at Hogwarts.' Just that. Just, 'he's at Hogwarts.'" 

I felt a sudden chill which had nothing to do with the coolness of the evening air. A month before he'd escaped . . . I hadn't even known I'd be coming to Hogwarts then, so he couldn't have known it. But then who? 

"Who's at Hogwarts?" I asked. "Who did he mean?" 

Dumbledore stopped walking and looked at me, and his ice-blue eyes held no trace of their usual twinkle now. He looked suddenly older, and worried. 

"He's after young Harry Potter," he told me solemnly. I drew a sharp breath, folding my arms, shivering as I glanced away toward the horizon. The sky to the west was the color of blood, and against it, a black silhouette, I could see the outline of the Whomping Willow. I felt a lump in my throat as I stared at that old tree, thinking of all the times the four of us had slipped past it on our midnight adventures. . . . 

His own best friend's son . . . could he really do it? Kill James Potter's son? My face hardened, remembering the newspapers, the blasted street where thirteen innocent people had died. Of course he could. He'd killed Peter, and twelve Muggles besides . . . he'd betrayed James and Lily . . . 

And little Harry Potter, only a year old, had defeated Voldemort and gotten Sirius sent to Azkaban. I shivered, Harry's pale face hovering before my mind's eye. Naturally, I thought, Sirius would want revenge. . . . 

"The Ministry has decided that for our own protection, there will dementors guarding every entrance to the grounds." Dumbledore's tone told me quite clearly that he did not approve of the measure. 

"They're not going to be patrolling the grounds?" I asked, surprised. 

"No dementor will be entering the grounds of this school," he replied shortly. "Not as long as I have anything to say about it." 

"Are they any closer to catching him?" 

Dumbledore shook his head. "Right now he could be anywhere," he said wearily. "But he won't get into the school. As soon as he tries, he'll be recaptured. H won't get past the dementors--those creatures aren't fooled by any disguises, not even Invisibility Cloaks." 

His last words brought the sudden picture to my mind, not of Sirius' face, but of Sirius as he had been when he transformed. I could almost see the huge, shaggy, bearlike dog as he had run beside me through the shadows of the Forbidden Forest on those long-ago full moon nights. The image was still sharp in my memory, and now it seemed sinister . . . for a second it was not Sirius that I saw, but the legendary Grim, the dark omen of death. How appropriate, I thought with a sudden, bitter irony, that he had chosen that particular shape. 

Could the dementors recognize an Animagus, when he was in animal form? I wondered. I opened my mouth to ask Dumbledore's opinion--and shut it again abruptly. Dumbledore didn't know, I thought. No one knew, not the dementors, not the Hit Wizards from the Ministry . . . Sirius could be anywhere, I realized, roaming free as a dog, and no one, Muggle or wizard, would ever recognize him. No one but us four had ever known . . . it had been our secret. . . . 

Dumbledore was looking at me curiously, and I wondered with a start how much my face had revealed. 

"You were going to say something?" he inquired. 

I should tell him, I thought. Sirius could be wandering the Forbidden Forest as a dog right this very minute. And yet . . . how could I explain to this man, who had trusted me, who had given me a chance when no one else would, that for years I had betrayed that trust, and led three others to become Animagi illegally . . . a serious crime, by the laws of the Ministry of Magic? 

Sirius must have learned all sorts of dark spells from Voldemort, I thought to myself. He probably knew Dark magic none of us had ever heard of. Surely his being able to transform into a dog had nothing to do with it. . . . 

"Sirius probably knows a lot of Dark magic," I said quickly, still watching the horizon, not meeting his eyes. "He could have powers we . . . know nothing about. We . . . should take every precaution." 

I hated myself as soon as I said it. Maybe he wasn't transforming in order to get in, but there was no way to rule out the possibility. What if I was wrong, and my cowardice caused Harry's death? 

"We're being very careful," Dumbledore assured me, giving me a searching look. I wondered how much he suspected, but if he did he said nothing about it. "Don't worry about it," he continued. "Theyll catch him long before he gets near here, I'm sure of it." His voice was confident, but I could see lines of concern in his face. "I did want to say welcome back," he said. "I know . . . this is all very hard on you. Quite a shock on your first day back, I understand . . ." He reached out, gripped my shoulder briefly. "But I'm glad you're here." 

I looked down, feeling awkward and ashamed. He trusted me absolutely, I could see it. And how had I repayed his trust? 

"I don't know if I ever thanked you, sir," I said after a moment. 

"For what?" he asked. 

"For this job," I replied. "For . . . everything. I hope . . . I hope I can live up to your expectations." 

He smiled. "I know you will," he said. He turned, and we both looked back toward the castle, outlined in deep gray against the darkening sky. "This is a rather inauspicious beginning to the year," he admitted. "But it won't disrupt the school too much, I hope. Have you seen your office yet?" 

I blinked at the abrupt change of subject, and shook my head. 

"Well, then," Dumbledore said, with a trace of his usual cheer, "I'll leave you to your lesson plans, then. Classes start tomorrow; I'm sure you've got a lot of preparations to make." And with a smile, he walked quickly away, his robes swishing behind him. I watched after him in the fading red light, my thoughts a turmoil of self-loathing and also a faint but unmistakable relief. Shaking my head in contempt for my own weakness, I started slowly up the dirt track toward the castle. 

Tomorrow, I told myself sternly, I would tell him all about Sirius and James and Peter and me. Tomorrow, I would tell him everything, and face the consequences of my own betrayal. 


	4. 

Author's Note: Well here it is-part four, if anyone still remembers this story. Sorry it took me so long to get started on it again! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys ROCK!  
  
Disclaimer: These characters all belong to J.K. Rowling. I am not making any money off of this story, so please don't sue me!  
  
Severus was right about me, I thought bitterly as I unlocked the door to my room.  
  
"Ignitium," I said listlessly to the logs in my fireplace, tapping the air with my wand. A crackling blaze sprang to life, and for a moment I was tempted to fling the wand into the flames. But it was not that easy anymore. I could no longer cut myself off from this world, pretend that none of it existed.  
  
Coward.  
  
I had been here a day now, taught my first class, watched my students face their worst fears and overcome them. Something which I could not do.  
  
Dressing Sirius up in a long green gown would not render him harmless. No red handbag or stuffed vulture could dull the pain of betrayal or the-I couldn't deny it-stark fear I felt at the thought of facing him again.  
  
It was not that I feared my own death. I had spent too many years wishing for it, held the knife to my wrist too many times to count, a mere whisper of skin between cold metal and blood. I wished then, for one desperate moment, that I had had the courage once, just once, to finish the job, before whatever angel that had preserved me led me here.  
  
I would gladly have taken my own life then and there, without hesitation, in that lonely bedroom, rather than face what I knew was coming. Rather than face the man who had been one of my closest friends. Who had killed every person who meant anything at all to me. Who had made me feel as if I meant something for the first time in my life. Who had given me everything- and then taken it all away.  
  
I had never really faced Sirius' betrayal, in all the years of my self- imposed exile, I realized then. I had run from it, tried to hide, blocked him out of my thoughts. I had cried for Lily and James and Peter-I had tried to drown the pain in alcohol-I had given in to the fury of my savage half, told myself I would never forgive him.  
  
I think if I could be truly angry, if I could make myself hate him, I might find some peace. And there is a part of me that, even in human form, would tear the man limb from limb if I ever saw him again.  
  
But after all this time, if I allow myself to think of that night, beneath the anger and beneath the hate I clutch like armor round me, the only thing I can feel is a soul-deep anguish and confusion. Somewhere inside me the teenager I was still begs me to tell him it isn't true, that it is just a nightmare that has lasted too long. The truth was that I had long ago stopped trying to reconcile the two images of Sirius-brother and traitor. I mourned James and Lily and Peter, but Sirius I did not think of. I think if I ever managed to equate the two Siriuses, it would destroy me.  
  
For so long, his and James' friendship had been what defined me as a person, as someone worth existing at all, when the rest of the world seemed to say otherwise. Even after all these years, there was still a part of my heart that would not see Sirius my friend as the man who gave us to Voldemort. If it ever did, I am convinced my heart would spontaneously combust.  
  
A mere sliver of moon shone outside my window. I stared at it, wondering that the usual shiver did not come. That boggart had got it wrong, I thought. The moon was no longer my greatest fear.  
  
Not even close.  
  
  
  
Today was the day, I told myself. Today I will tell him. I will not put this off, I will not leave Harry Potter in danger any longer.  
  
That was how I started every day since I came to Hogwarts. But Dumbledore remained blissfully ignorant of Sirius full capabilities, and I had been here a week.  
  
There was so much of James in young Harry. Every day I taught the third year class, watching him with his two friends, I saw the ghost of my friend. James was in the way he cocked his head curiously if I failed to explain something correctly, in the way he laughed at some private joke he shared with fellow Gryffindors, in the pride and anger that showed in his confrontations with Draco Malfoy.  
  
It was for him that I had returned to the wizarding world, and to Hogwarts, I reminded myself. It was to protect James' son from James' best friend that I put myself through the torture of memories long buried.  
  
But it was I, not Sirius, who daily put Harry in danger. It was I who had turned my back on my oldest friend's son, for fear of Dumbledore's wrath and my own shame. It was my own cowardice, more than Sirius' treachery, that would kill Harry.  
  
Packing up my things at the end of the day, getting ready to return to my room, I saw the three of them pass by the classroom, followed by another boy. Neville Longbottom, the name came to my mind. The one who had dressed Snape in his grandmother's dress . . . .  
  
I closed my eyes briefly as Sirius' laughter rang in my head. How he would have loved that sight! How James would have loved it . . . . Watching as Neville disappeared down the hall, I was reminded of Peter, and how Severus had always tormented him. Peter had been terrified of Severus-but it had been Peter, not me, who had tracked down Sirius in the days following Lily and James' deaths, Peter who had challenged him, knowing as we all knew, as we all had always known, that Sirius would kill him easily in a duel. Sirius had always been smarter, more powerful. Peter had always had the least courage, the least talent. But it was Peter who died a hero's death twelve years ago. It was Peter who showed no fear when he was finally called upon to act.  
  
And it was I who lived, hating myself for every day that I was alive while they were dead. It was I who refused to risk losing Dumbledore's respect and trust, and chose to risk James' son's life instead.  
  
There was a book lying on my dresser when I entered the bedroom. It must have been Dumbledore who put it there, since no one else besides the house- elves had the passwords to get into a teacher's private rooms. There was no note, no explanation.  
  
The sparkling gold words winked at me in the candlelight, surrounded by cracked leather.  
  
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Class of 1985.  
  
I almost left it lying there.  
  
I reached out a hand to touch the peeling letters. Hesitant at first, I picked it up. It was my old yearbook. I don't know where Dumbledore found it. I hadn't laid eyes on the thing since I left school. I lifted it like you would an unexploded bomb, carrying it gently to my bed, sitting down and resting it on my knees. It fell open to the first page and the seventh- year class picture waved at me, all our younger selves, captured at the instant of graduation.  
  
James and Lily, head boy and girl, smiled at me from the next page. Her loopy script filled the white space beneath the picture, and I let my fingers brush over the ink, unable to read her words through the sudden tears that filled my eyes.  
  
James and Lily were on the next page, too, designated as "cutest couple." I flipped through the pages, yellow-edged parchment crackling at my touch.  
  
Hogwarts Yearbooks were organized by House, with the graduates on the first pages, and the first-years last. On the first page of this year's Gryffindor section, however, were the pictures of Annabelle and Laura Bones, a third year and a fourth year. Smiling at me beneath these two were pictures of their parents, a tall Auror and his wife, a smiling witch who barely came up to his waist. The entire family had been killed by Lord Voldemort in the year we all graduated.  
  
On the next page, the Gryffindor seventh-years were lined up, portraits all waving at me. James . . . Lily . . . Peter . . . Sirius. I flipped quickly to the next page.  
  
Many of the sixth years were also familiar. Eliza Prewett had been a Chaser for the Quidditch team for two years. Her family was killed the year after we graduated, I remembered. Sirius . . . that had been Sirius' first mission as part of the League Against Voldemort, to find out who You-Know- Who's next target was, and protect them. Had he already been working for Voldemort at the time?  
  
Turning to the Ravenclaw section, I recognized Leah and Anne McKinnon. Both reserve Chasers for the Ravenclaw team. Two years apart, but nearly inseparable. Members of an old, though not particularly rich, wizarding family. The McKinnons had valued education, and it was no surprise that the two had been in Ravenclaw. It had come as quite a surprise to them when their older sister Mary had been sorted into Hufflepuff.  
  
It wasn't that Mary wasn't as bright as her sisters. Even Sirius, who Mary insisted never gave a damn about her, would have agreed. In her first years at Hogwarts her marks were as good as or better than her sisters'. But Mary could be stubborn about some things, and loyal to a fault. And in her sixth and seventh years, she was much more interested in the Marauders than in the classes she was taking.  
  
Our combat medic, Sirius had called her. In addition to her studies she was Madam Pomfrey's unofficial apprentice, and regardless of her parents' disapproval she decided in her sixth year that she wanted to become a healer. She had been the one who patched us up when we feared Madam Pomfrey would ask questions. We knew we could trust her to keep a secret.  
  
In the end, that was what killed her. The McKinnons were all killed, one by one, until she was the only one left. She refused to tell the Death Eaters where James and Sirius were hiding, or where their next sting would take place.  
  
Was it Sirius himself who gave the order to have her killed?  
  
I slammed the book shut, filled with a sudden unreasoning anger at whoever had left it there for me to find.  
  
It was a long time before I fell asleep that night.  
  
  
  
The first full moon of the school year came on Halloween night, and Snape was as good as his word. On finding myself in wolf form but able to retain my human mind, I took the opportunity to prowl the Forbidden Forest for much of the night, searching in vain for the telltale scent that would tell me Sirius had passed.  
  
I was not successful, and returning to the castle I almost wished I had stayed in my office, curled up by the fire. While thanks to the Wolfsbane potion I did not have any scratches, cuts, gashes, or broken bones to worry about, the potion did nothing about the aftereffects of the transformation. If anything, I was even more tired than usual.  
  
Madam Pomfrey was waiting for me at the door to my quarters. She did not say a word at first, or give any sign of alarm at my face, which my mirror told me was gray from exhaustion. But before anything else she grabbed me and hugged me hard.  
  
I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, so I didn't say anything as she pushed me toward the bed. Sitting, I leaned against the headboard, where I could see the yearbook, still, on my dresser. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to think about that now. Not about Hogwarts, or James, or Harry, or Madam Pomfrey hovering over me like a short black mother hen. I just wanted them all to go away so I could sleep.  
  
Something warm touched my hands, and I opened my eyes as Madam Pomfrey handed me a steaming mug full of hot chocolate. I stared at it blankly for a moment, wrapping my hands around it, letting the sides of the mug warm my cold hands and breathing in the sweet steam rising from it.  
  
As I raised the mug to my lips, the unmistakable figure of Albus Dumbledore appeared in the doorway.  
  
"Headmaster," I managed in a croaky whisper.  
  
"Remus," he said, his voice serious. "How are you feeling?"  
  
I sighed and took a long sip of chocolate. "Lovely, Headmaster," I whispered. "Just lovely."  
  
My eyes were half closed as Madam Pomfrey got up and crossed to the door.  
  
"Should we tell him?" I heard him ask her softly.  
  
"No!" Madam Pomfrey's voice, though also soft, was vehement. "He needs to sleep. You don't have to lay this on him, too."  
  
"Tell me what?"  
  
The Headmaster looked up, startled, and his blue eyes, normally twinkling, were grave.  
  
"It's not important, Remus," Madam Pomfrey said, coming swiftly to my side and pressing her hand to my forehead. "You should sleep."  
  
"No." I sat up, setting the mug on the nightstand and looking Dumbledore in the eye. "What happened?"  
  
Dumbledore crossed the room and looked down at me, and his gaze softened. He looked at me sadly for a moment. "It can wait, Remus."  
  
I shook my head, wincing as pain throbbed behind my left ear. Dumbledore sat down on the bed beside me.  
  
"Sirius was in the castle last night," he said at last. I sat bolt upright, prompting Madam Pomfrey to shoot Dumbledore a dark look. The Headmaster ignored it.  
  
"Did you catch him?" I knew as soon as I asked the question that they had not-knew it the instant Dumbledore had spoken. The gravity of his face made that only too clear. But for one moment I had hoped-desperately, foolishly- that it was all over, that Sirius was gone far away where he was no threat to Harry's life or my sanity, and I could shove my memories of him as far down into that dark, painful hole in my subconscious as they would go. That he would be taken back to Azkaban without my having to confront him-or the still raw emotions the sight of him provoked. That I could maybe, just maybe, start to attempt to rebuild what might be left of my life.  
  
"No." Dumbledore looked at me for a long time, and for not the first time I began to wonder if the old wizard could read minds. Could he sense that I was hiding something?  
  
I had to tell him. That was no longer up for debate. Sirius had gotten into the castle, and whether or not his transformation had helped, it was something everyone charged with protecting the school had a right to know.  
  
But how? And how to explain why it was I had never told him until now?  
  
"He attacked the Fat Lady with a knife when she couldn't let him into Gryffindor Tower."  
  
He had gotten all the way to the Tower portrait hole? With a knife? My head was spinning, horrified. So close . . . so close . . . way too close . . .  
  
"Yes," Dumbledore murmured, and I looked up at him, seeing his lined face as if from very far away. I hadn't realized I had spoken the last words aloud. "It's all right, Remus. We can talk about this later."  
  
Madam Pomfrey was suddenly at my side, pushing me to lie down and feeling my forehead again. "No," I said, making a feeble effort to sit up again. Madam Pomfrey restrained me quite easily, looking even more worried as she waved at the Headmaster to leave the room. "Headmaster, there's something I need to tell you-"  
  
"Not now, Remus," Dumbledore said firmly. "We can talk tomorrow."  
  
"Headmaster . . ."  
  
"Rest," Madam Pomfrey said, smoothing my hair back from my forehead in a gesture of uncharacteristic tenderness. "There will be time tomorrow."  
  
  
  
It was not until Monday that I was allowed to return to work. Madam Pomfrey saw to that. After classes were over that day, I set out across the grounds to speak to someone I had been avoiding for too long.  
  
Hagrid was outside watering his pumpkin patch when I approached, and the giant black dog beside him gave me a start before I remembered the boarhound pup he had found when I was a student here. He looked up just in time to see me recoil.  
  
"Down, Fang!" he commanded, although the dog was already crouched at his feet, sniffing at a fox's hole. "Remus! Yeh remember Fang, don' yeh, lad? Hasn' 'e grown?"  
  
One would think the creature in question was a child and not a huge boarhound. But Hagrid had no idea why I shied away from giant black dogs. Neither did Dumbledore, I thought savagely. And why not?  
  
I would tell him later, I reminded myself, as soon as I was done talking to Hagrid. But I knew I would not. A sick feeling of self-disgust settled in the pit of my stomach as Hagrid dusted his hands on his apron.  
  
He stood there looking at me for a long time. Finally he said, "It's good to see ye, Lupin, lad." He nodded his great shaggy head, and his black eyes were bright. "It's good to see ye, right 'nough."  
  
He turned, called to Fang, opened the door to the cottage. I followed mutely. I didn't know what to say. Images of our last meeting flashed in my mind, and I shook my head, looking around the cottage and taking in the new oddments on the shelves, the familiar décor that had existed when the four of us had come here to visit in our own school years.  
  
I accepted a chair at the old, scratched wooden table gratefully, sipping at the hot butterbeer he placed in front of me and wondering what to say. He didn't seem to mind the lack of immediate conversation, only sat across from me with his chin in one giant hand, watching me with a sort of veiled understanding. It was always the same, walking into a familiar place, a place I had been so many times over twelve years ago-but seeing it for the first time alone, without the faces that should have been beside me. I don't care what they say. It doesn't ever get any easier.  
  
But I was not going to break down in front of Hagrid a second time. I looked up. "I don't think I ever got a chance to congratulate you," I said.  
  
He smiled, and his face reddened as he looked down, but I could see the anxiety he tried to hide. Malfoy, I remembered.  
  
"I'm sorry about the hippogriff," I said quickly, wondering if I had raised a sensitive subject. "If there's anything I can do-"  
  
He shook his head. "Nah, it'll all be all righ', don' worry 'bout me. It's you I've been worried about." He fixed me with a piercing glance. "Yeh might've owled ter let us all know where yeh were-if yeh were alive-"  
  
I ducked my head, somewhat embarrassed at the sincere concern in his face, and trying not to think of the last time he had looked at me thus. Thankfully my memory of that time was still hazed with alcohol . . .  
  
"I'm sorry," I said softly. I didn't know what else to say, didn't really want to talk about that night or what had happened in the long gulf between then and now.  
  
"I was worried abou' yeh," he said again, gently. "Didn' know if-if yeh-"  
  
I was shaking my head slowly, without looking at him, gripping the edge of the table to stop the memories. I wanted to say something, reassure the old gamekeeper, tell him he didn't have to worry, that I wasn't the desperate young man he'd nearly had to fish out of the river that long ago Christmas Eve. The problem was that I wasn't entirely sure it was true.  
  
"I didn't-I just-wanted to get away," I whispered finally. I looked up, silently begging him to let it go . . . to leave it at that. I didn't want to talk about it any more.  
  
"Yeh all righ', lad?" he asked.  
  
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I would not break down again! I wasn't even drunk this time . . .  
  
"Come 'ere," he said suddenly. He had stood up, and was moving toward the door. "I got somethin' ter show yeh." Curious, I took a long gulp of butterbeer and followed him outside.  
  
He was walking toward the Forbidden Forest, I realized with a pang. He had no idea how well I already knew that forest, every beaten track and faun trail, every centaur's lair and phoenix's nest. Or did he? Neither of us said anything as he led the way into the wood. I sniffed the air, but the scents were much fainter than they had been to a wolf's senses that Halloween. Still, even my human nose could detect a faint-metallic? smell.  
  
"Didn' know what ter do with it," Hagrid confessed, as he clambered over a tree that had fallen across the path. "Couldn' give it ter Harry, o' course, bein' as how it migh' be considered a mite dangerous . . . o' course Dumbledore did give him the Invisibility Cloak . . ." he didn't notice how I started violently at the mention of the cloak. "but that was James' and this . . ."  
  
I still had no idea what he was talking about. He didn't seem to notice as he went on, leading me deeper into the Forbidden Forest. "Supposed I should've turned it over ter th' Ministry twelve years ago. Didn', though. Don' know why." He stopped for a moment, listening, then turned and left the path, wading through thick undergrowth as I followed. "Don' know why he left it with me," he went on, as if to himself. "'I won' be needin' it anymore,' he said. Should've known then . . ." he broke off. "But never mind that. He left it with me, an' I figure you're the one as ought ter have it if anyone should."  
  
Confused, and more than a little apprehensive now, I watched as he raised a wand and pointed it at a pile of old wood chips covered in moss and twigs.  
  
"Revelatium!"  
  
The image of moss shifted, rippling as though through smoke, and suddenly vanished. What lay underneath made my breath stop.  
  
Lying there on the dead leaves, glossy black paint chipped and scratched, shining chrome dulled by the elements and starting to rust, was Sirius' motorcycle.  
  
It was a long time before I remembered to breathe. Lying there battered and weary, it looked almost as it had when Sirius first dragged it home with him, after finding it crashed by the side of the road. He had been so proud of this bike. Madam Pomfrey had said it was his girlfriend, his wife, his soul mate. She hadn't been far wrong. He had taken the wrecked motorcycle in and tended to it with the patience and tenderness one would lavish on a wounded unicorn.  
  
She looked so different now from how she had when we had finally finished with her. (Oh God, I was starting to sound like him-it, not she, IT.) Polished leather for the seat, glossy black paint and silver chrome shining when the sun hit the body. She had hovered in the air, a few inches above the ground, waiting for him to mount. Dignified, spirited, humming with power held in check like a fine thoroughbred race horse.  
  
I knelt down on the dry leaves, feeling rather than seeing Hagrid take a step closer. I hesitated before reaching out a hand to stroke the scratched paint of the handlebars. Lightly, reverently, as if it was something infinitely fragile and likely to break at any second. Trying hard to see only the bike, only this creature of metal and leather, not the man who had tamed her and made her fly.  
  
Come on, Moony, she'll carry two of us! It's a thousand times better than a broomstick-you can't even imagine! What're you, scared?  
  
I swear I could hear him. Clear as if he'd been right next to me. I looked up, cocked my head, but no one was there. Only Hagrid, who stood waiting patiently, letting me deal with this in my own way.  
  
What to say? What to do? If there ever was one thing, one concrete symbol or object that was all Sirius was, all that I would have bet my life was him, it was this motorcycle. Reckless, daring, touched with fire . . .  
  
"I won' be needin' it anymore . . ."  
  
I wondered under what circumstances Sirius had come to give the bike to Hagrid. I never would have believed he would give it up to anyone. But then I never would have believed many of the things he'd done . . .  
  
I had never actually ridden the bike. Back in those days I had valued my own skin far more than I did now, and Sirius had never succeeded in persuading me to risk it in the air on a Muggle machine enchanted by an underage wizard to do something no such machine was supposed to do. The only person who had ever ridden it with him was Mary McKinnon, and she had been wildly in love with him. Even James had never gone-although I think Lily might have had something to do with that.  
  
I shut my eyes against the flow of memories, still lightly stroking the handlebars, running gentle fingers along the rusted body. How long I crouched there, feeling flakes of paint crumble and crack under my fingers, I do not know, but when I looked up my eyes were filled with tears.  
  
Hagrid made a motion with his wand, and when I looked back the bike was gone. I couldn't see it, but I could still feel cold metal against my hand. I let go, and stood up.  
  
A heavy hand clamped on my shoulder. "Come, lad," he said. In silence, we turned away. When we reached the edge of the forest he seized me in a bone- crushing hug. After releasing me, he didn't say anything at first. Then he pointed toward the cottage. "Yeh ever need me," he said gruffly, "yeh know where ter find me."  
  
I nodded, and I watched him as he turned away, back toward the cottage. I watched him for a long time, before I turned toward the castle, and my own warm fire.  
  
To be continued . . . 


	5. 

Author's Note: As promised, here is part five!! ( To everyone who reviewed . . . I love you!! Thanks so much!! I am sitting here thinking about home while I should be studying for finals, and I thought I'd write a bit of holiday fluff for the Marauders. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, and I am not making any money off this story, so please don't sue me! I have no money!!  
  
Sitting at my desk in my office, after building up a roaring blaze in the fireplace, I removed several books from my shelf, thumbing through the index of one particularly worn paperback. It was late, and most of the castle was asleep, but tonight was not a night I wanted to risk closing my eyes. Not with the memories still so close to the surface. Better to work, concentrate on something else.  
  
I came to the index entry I was looking for. Patronus charm. Pages 314-315, 400-420. I had promised Harry I would teach him to ward off the dementors- and if his last Quidditch match was any indication, he was likely to be in at least as much danger from the Azkaban guards as from the prisoner they were supposed to be guarding. If I couldn't protect him from Sirius . . .  
  
Don't go there. Not now.  
  
I hadn't said anything to Dumbledore yet, of course. A bitter laugh escaped me as I turned to the page describing the Patronus charm. Yet. As if it was only a matter of finding time to speak to Dumbledore. I could no longer fool myself like that.  
  
But Dumbledore was asleep by now, and I had work to do, I reminded myself. Such as finding a way to show Harry how to drive off dementors without collapsing or becoming too drained myself. Much as I wanted to help Harry, the idea of reliving my own worst memories again and again was terrifying.  
  
But if it was horrible for me, who knew how to drive them off, how awful must it be for Harry, being forced to listen to the voices of his parents- my friends-as they were murdered by Lord Voldemort?  
  
By their own best friend . . .  
  
"No!" I brought my hand down hard on the book with a thump, then looked up nervously, the exclamation echoing in the silence of the castle. You have to concentrate, I said softly, aloud. You can't fall apart now. You can't.  
  
I could still perform the Patronus charm-I had found that out, unwillingly, on the train. But how to explain to a thirteen-year-old boy what I did mostly by instinct, honed by missions when I was much younger, tracking the few rogue dementors who had followed Voldemort? I didn't think about theory when I raised my wand against a dementor any more than an Auror thinks about the precise technique required for the countercurse when repelling the Avada Kedavra. Either you knew it well enough to do it without thinking, or you were dead before you had a chance to concentrate.  
  
Self-defense reflexes linger long after book-learning and explanations of technique fade away. Instinct, however, as many times as it had saved my life in the past, is useless in teaching. I could not simply tell Harry he must drive away the dementors "by instinct."  
  
Defense Against the Dark Arts had always been one of my best subjects, and while I had never been as powerful as James and Sirius in actual combat, there had been few wizards in my year more knowledgeable about the various kinds of dark creatures that existed and what their most common motivations were. Perhaps it was a sense of empathy, being a so-called subhuman myself, that drove me to try to understand the minds of the dark creatures. Or perhaps it was merely a practical response to having James and Sirius as friends, two of the most powerful wizards of their age-hoping that my knowledge and strategy would made up for what I lacked compared to them in sheer magical strength.  
  
One of the first things I discovered on graduating Hogwarts was that real life is much different from what you read in books, and dark creatures are no exception. (After all, look at everything they say about werewolves.) And nothing you read in a book can possibly prepare you for first meeting a dementor face to face.  
  
Of course, Harry had already faced the dementors more than once, and his reaction, while a source of much embarrassment to him, came as no surprise to me. If only he knew how close I had come to collapsing that day on the train . . .  
  
The Patronus charm is not a part of the curriculum at Hogwarts, and hadn't been since the defeat of Grindelwald, who had been the last dark wizard to incite a mass revolt among the dementors. Since the end of the Second World War the dementors had been confined to remote gulags such as Azkaban, and the chance of encountering a dementor in everyday life was next to impossible. The theory for the charm had been a subject for graduate work at some magical institutions of higher education, and was still part of standard Auror training, but aside from human overseers of Azkaban there are few wizards today who ever use it.  
  
The book I was looking through now was written by a retired Auror, now deceased, who had fought against Grindelwald in the 1940's. I had picked up the book during a trip to Edinburgh during my sixth year, at a university bookstore out of sheer curiosity. I knew that I had no chance to become an Auror myself (the Auror's Bureau does not take werewolves) but I also knew, even then, that Professor Dumbledore had his own network of agents not connected to the Ministry, specifically targeting the Voldemort threat.  
  
Where Dumbledore had found the book I don't know-I had kept few of my magical possession save my wand during my exile, and I had never expected to see any of my collection of books again. But when I had arrived, my books had been in my office along with my class schedules waiting for me. Dumbledore's work, I didn't doubt. Smoothing piece of blank parchment on the desk, I took out a quill and dipped it into an ink bottle, skimming the chapter on dementors, making notes every so often when a point occurred to me that might be useful.  
  
  
  
December 24  
  
When I was in my sixth year, I remember, James and Peter and Sirius and I had all stayed at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays. This had become something of a tradition with the Marauders since the death of my parents, since now neither Sirius nor I had anywhere else to go. But my sixth-year Christmas is one I remember particularly well, for it was the first that Lily stayed with us.  
  
It was the first time she really spent time with us-we were the only Gryffindors left at Hogwarts, and we discovered that the supposedly perfect Lily Evans had a streak of mischief as deep as any Marauder's.  
  
It didn't take James long to fall in love after those weeks.  
  
I remember Christmas Eve, when she made us all sit around the Christmas tree in the common room while she read us Christmas stories by Muggle authors she knew. Besides Sirius, she was the only one of us who was Muggle- born, so she held us spell-bound with a perfect recitation of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." But the story that lingers in my mind still was one by a nineteenth-century Muggle named Dickens. I had been unable to comprehend the idea, then, of a man who hated Christmas. Not just didn't care, but actually hated it.  
  
We were young then, and took great delight in yelling "Scrooge!" every time Severus Snape passed us in the halls, like it was some great private joke. And indeed, if anyone fit the description of Ebenezer Scrooge, it was Severus.  
  
I never thought that one day the name would be just as applicable to myself.  
  
  
  
Harry may not remember his first Christmas, I thought, as I made my way up to my room through halls festooned with holly and evergreen, but I remember it only too well.  
  
It was a somber time, and none of us dared risk going home to see our families . . . those of us that had families. My parents had died when I was very young, and I had lived with foster families over the summer holidays when I couldn't stay with James or Peter. Sirius had never known his parents, and had spent his childhood being shuffled between a collection of aunts, none of whom knew him well or quite approved of him. James' parents and Peter's mother had wanted their sons home for Christmas, but we knew even then that the four of us were at the top of Voldemort's list. We decided it was safer to have Christmas together, just the five of us and Harry, lying low in a safe house provided by Professor Dumbledore.  
  
It was less than a year before James and Lily and Peter died. The five of us were now deeply involved in the war against Voldemort, and had been for some time. We were not afraid for ourselves during those days, as much for Lily and Harry. It is incredibly difficult to work as an undercover spy when you have a wife and infant son, and to this day I cannot imagine how James was able to manage as well as he did.  
  
It had been a bad year for us all. The Prewetts and the McKinnons had both been hunted down and killed, despite our prior knowledge of the enemy's intentions. All four of us had risked death and capture more than once to find out Voldemort's intentions, and it had been for nothing.  
  
It was on the night Harry was born, while Lily was still in labor, that Dumbledore's owl had reached us informing us the Prewetts were dead. James and I had canvassed the streets for months to find out who Voldemort intended to strike at, and all of us had been personally involved in finding a hiding place for the family of six, and in keeping alert for the slightest indication that their security had been compromised.  
  
In the end, it was Sirius and Mary McKinnon who left all at once, in the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to warn the family that the Death Eaters were about to strike.  
  
They were too late. Sirius' broomstick began to behave erratically early in the flight and they were forced to hotwire a Muggle car, memory-charming half a dozen of the Muggle police and leaving the car a smashed wreck. Later I would wonder if Sirius sabotaged his own broomstick and caused the delay.  
  
That Christmas came barely a week after our last attempt at a rescue. It had been the first mission Lily had participated in since Harry's birth, and had ended with her watching a good friend die in Sirius' arms. The deaths of the McKinnons, after months of work dedicated to protecting them, hit us all hard. A fine team of undercover agents we made, only a few years out of Hogwarts-able to predict the next strike but helpless to avert it, twice in a row in the two most important missions we had ever been assigned. It was a solemn holiday, and none of us felt much like celebrating anything.  
  
We might have thought we were incompetent, but Voldemort obviously thought we were dangerous enough to want us out of the way. Before she died, Mary told us the chilling news-the Marauders, specifically the Potter family, were the next target of the Death Eaters.  
  
On receiving our report on the McKinnons' deaths, Dumbledore had sent his terse condolences and instruction to meet Mundungus Fletcher in south Wales. We had thought we would get another mission, but when we met him he merely escorted us, in a Muggle car with tinted windows, to a small cottage in the Welsh countryside, where we found Harry waiting for us. The baby had been hidden at Hogwarts while his mother was away, but now Fletcher told us Dumbledore wanted us all to take some time off, regroup mentally, lay low for a while.  
  
God knows we needed it. We were all burned out, exhausted emotionally and physically from the ordeals of the past few months. As soon as she saw Harry, Lily swept him into her arms, and for all that day she sat on the floor in a corner of the living room, rocking him slowly and crying.  
  
The place was not particularly fancy-a two-bedroom cottage with a small living room and smaller kitchen. The furniture consisted of a few chairs, a table, and Harry's crib. The rest of us had to sleep on the floor-James and Lily in one bedroom, Sirius, Peter, and I in the other. There was no stove, only a fireplace with a note in the long-cold ashes warning us not to light it lest the smoke be seen by enemies.  
  
We arrived two days after the disastrous conclusion of our last mission, and we hadn't slept at all in that time. Still I couldn't sleep that night. It was Christmas Eve. I stared into the cold, dark fireplace, watching as motes of dust danced in the light of a crescent moon and wondering what was going to happen to the world.  
  
I was only twenty. Three years out of school, and I had spent the better part of the first two drifting between James' and Peter's houses, along with Sirius, who like me had no family. I had no regular job, nor did I expect to find one any time soon. An educated werewolf was still a werewolf, in the eyes of most wizards. But it didn't matter to me then. I had work to do, important work, though it was extremely dangerous and paid next to nothing. I lived with my friends or at Hogwarts when I was in the vicinity, or I could claim sanctuary at any of the designated "safe houses" scattered throughout England's major cities.  
  
Our job description wasn't official, nor was it specific. We had all been called before Dumbledore individually, for "career counseling" as it was officially called, where he had requested that we put aside whatever career plans we had and work directly under him against Voldemort.  
  
We were surprised, to say the least. I agreed instantly-I had no plans to lay aside, as the Ministry would never accept a werewolf as an Auror, and I had longed to contribute to the fight in some way. James and Sirius had vowed to become Aurors since Voldemort's first attack, but their respect for Dumbledore was so great that it didn't take long for them to be convinced. Peter was a different matter. It took a long while for Dumbledore to convince him to give up hopes of a comfy, safe desk job at the Ministry. I was ashamed later that I felt nothing but contempt for what I perceived as his cowardice.  
  
In time of war, old customs and proprieties are set aside. Lily, too, was working for Dumbledore, and practicality as well as love had her and James sharing an apartment barely a year after they graduated Hogwarts. They were married soon afterward, though they were only nineteen-partly to stay away from their families lest Voldemort should come after their parents, and partly to spend as much time as they could in one another's company, in case one or both of them should not live very long.  
  
I glanced up as Harry's cry pierced the still night, and listened in the darkness as Lily's voice murmured unintelligible reassurance. I thought about going to the bedroom where Sirius and Peter were asleep, and trying to get some rest myself. It had been so long since I had slept, but something held me away, drew me toward the window.  
  
The glass was cold, and fogged with gray frost. I rubbed my hand across the pane, peering through the window as condensation ran down and collected on the wooden sill. Scattered clouds leaked tiny snowflakes, drifting like stardust from the black sky to pile up on the hills in eerie silence. In between the clouds, patches of night sky glittered with tiny stars, brighter for the utter lack of artificial light so far from civilization.  
  
Harry had stopped crying, but I still thought I heard muffled sobs coming from James and Lily's room. Lily had always loved Christmas, I remembered. This must be hardest for her. She was used to spending Christmas with her family, or at Hogwarts among friends, where she knew she and everyone she loved was safe for a little while at least.  
  
Well, I thought. This was getting me nowhere, and it was obvious I would not sleep tonight. I pulled on my boots, opening the door as quietly as I could, and stepped out into the snow.  
  
The soft flakes were still falling, so I had no worries about my footprints still being visible from the air by the time morning arrived. My destination was not far off, in the evergreen grove that stood behind the little house. Wishing I had brought gloves, I batted powdery clumps of snow from heavy branches, inhaling the fresh pine scent with a painful nostalgia. Numbed, reddened hands wrestled with the branches, as I threw my weight against a particularly stubborn specimen. The branch gave a little, then broke suddenly with a snap that echoed in the stillness like a gunshot.  
  
That's more like it, I thought, as I selected the next branch, brushing snow away and wishing for a saw. I finally settled for some ten long, thin branches of evergreen, gathering my harvest in my arms and giving in to a childish urge to step carefully in my own footprints so as not to mar the perfect white blanket that covered the ground.  
  
My fingers were stiff and useless by the time I returned to the house, but all the same I felt inordinately pleased with myself. If we were going to be stuck here for Christmas, I might as well try to make the place cheerful, so that Lily might be able to enjoy herself while we were supposed to be taking a vacation. Letting her decorate the place with greenery might help take her mind off things, and bring back more pleasant memories of how she used to help decorate the common room at Hogwarts. With that thought, I curled up before the cold fireplace and was finally able to go to sleep.  
  
Waking up the next morning I found that I had not managed to get all the snow off of the branches, and my pile of evergreens were now sitting in a puddle of melted snow that was seeping into the wooden floorboards. In the pale new light of dawn, I was not nearly as certain I had done the right thing. What if Lily did not want to remember Christmas as it used to be? What if such memories would only cause her pain?  
  
My fears were unfounded, however. Heading to the tiny kitchen in search of food, I hurried back to the living room at her exclamation of delight. When I entered she had already begun directing James and Peter on where to hang the decorations.  
  
Peter and I obeyed, while James went looking for rocks or wood chips or dustballs he could transfigure into ornaments, and Sirius had great fun tickling Harry with the soft pine needles. For a little while we were able to forget the tension that surrounded us, as Lily quickly took over the decorations.  
  
She soon decided I hadn't brought nearly enough branches, and the resulting foray into the back yard soon became a full-fledged snowball war in which we all ended up drenched and shivering, but more relaxed and happy than we had been in almost a year.  
  
She even insisted that we board up the windows, so that we could light candles and sing carols late into the night, while she managed to find a hot chocolate spell to warm us all up. Sitting on the floor in a circle, sipping hot chocolate in cracked mugs by candlelight, singing carols in five different keys (I don't care what James told you, he couldn't sing a note, and Sirius couldn't either!) while passing Harry around like a tiny kitten to be petted and fussed over, remains the fondest Christmas memory of my life, the brighter since it came during a period of so much darkness.  
  
I wondered if Harry remembered that night, nearly thirteen years later. If he could, as he said, remember the night his parents died, then why not? I shook my head abruptly as I came to the door to my quarters, letting my fingers brush against the soft needles of the evergreen boughs someone- probably Madam Pomfrey-had hung through the Hogwarts halls. Someone someday should tell Harry something of his parents, the good times they had shared.  
  
But not me, I thought, entering my room and dropping my books on my bed, noting absently that my room was probably the only one in the school that was not decorated for Christmas. Not yet. There are some things I still cannot speak of, not to him. Not to anyone. 


End file.
